INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support): overview and key principles
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Date
2013
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons
Abstract
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) dominate disease burdens globally
and poor nutrition increasingly contributes to this global burden. Comprehensive
monitoring of food environments, and evaluation of the impact
of public and private sector policies on food environments is needed to
strengthen accountability systems to reduce NCDs. The International
Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research, Monitoring and Action
Support (INFORMAS) is a global network of public-interest organizations
and researchers that aims to monitor, benchmark and support public and
private sector actions to create healthy food environments and reduce
obesity, NCDs and their related inequalities. The INFORMAS framework
includes two ‘process’ modules, that monitor the policies and actions of the
public and private sectors, seven ‘impact’ modules that monitor the key
characteristics of food environments and three ‘outcome’ modules that
monitor dietary quality, risk factors and NCD morbidity and mortality.
Monitoring frameworks and indicators have been developed for 10
modules to provide consistency, but allowing for stepwise approaches
(‘minimal’, ‘expanded’, ‘optimal’) to data collection and analysis.
INFORMAS data will enable benchmarking of food environments between
countries, and monitoring of progress over time within countries. Through
monitoring and benchmarking, INFORMAS will strengthen the accountability
systems needed to help reduce the burden of obesity, NCDs and their
related inequalities.
Description
Keywords
Benchmarking, Food environments, INFORMAS, Obesity prevention
Citation
Swinburn, S. et al. (2013). INFORMAS (International Network for Food and Obesity/non-communicable diseases Research, Monitoring and Action Support): overview and key principles. Obesity Review, 14 (1): 1–12