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27 August 2018

IPH would like to invite you to its upcoming Obesity Symposium

‘Tackling childhood obesity: the economic and ethical imperatives’ will be held in the Clayton Hotel Belfast on 24 September at 10.30am.

The aim of the event is:

To present recent findings about the lifetime costs of childhood obesity in Northern Ireland and the marketing of food to children in a digital world
To discuss the implications for tackling childhood obesity in Northern Ireland

For more details and to register for the event, click here

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16 August 2018

August edition of the All-Island Obesity Forum News

The August issue of the Obesity Forum’s Newsletter includes a look at the recently released Irish Sports Policy 2018 – 2027. It also highlights Reports, Research, upcoming events and news in the area of obesity.

To access the Newsletter, click here

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14 August 2018

DoH publishes its 10-year Sláintecare Implementation StrategySláintecare is the Irish government’s reformation of Ireland’s health and social care system. The strategy proposes a fundamental shift, vision and strategic plan for the future direction of the Irish health and social care services.The Implementation Strategy, launched late last week, sets out a ten year plan for reform with wide ranging recommendations covering five key areas:

Population Health Profiling
Entitlements and Access
Integrated Care
Funding
Implementation.

You can download the implementation strategy here

For more information, click here

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26 July 2018

Ireland’s Healthy Ireland programme strengthened in the Department of Health 26.7.2018“A vision of people living longer, healthier lives, in safe, healthy environments”Minister for Health, Simon Harris and Minister of State at the Department of Health, Catherine Byrne, have announced two welcomed initiatives to strengthen he Healthy Ireland programme.An enhanced Healthy Ireland Office will be established within the Department of Health and a Government approved Outcomes Framework for Healthy Ireland (a recommendation of the Sláintecare report) is to be published in early Autumn. Minister Harris said “The new Outcomes Framework for Healthy Ireland has been developed to help assess and report on progress in the implementation of this key cross-government initiative, which aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people living in Ireland.”He went on to say that “The new Healthy Ireland Office will develop and deliver an action plan for the next phase of implementation of Healthy Ireland, and will be responsible for the delivery of an enhanced programme of communications and citizen engagement”.Minister Byrne said: “Healthy Ireland has a vision of people living longer, healthier lives, in safe, healthy environments. We want all our citizens, young and old, to feel supported in their communities in taking that first step towards a healthier lifestyle. That is why it is so important to further develop Healthy Ireland. Working with our partners, we aim to involve more organisations in helping to build and sustain a national movement for health and wellbeing, and generate a real enthusiasm for Healthy Ireland across every community.”

To view full press release

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25 May 2018

IPH presents results of a study of the lifetime cost of childhood obesity on the island of Ireland at the Summer Scientific Meeting 2018

The Faculty of Public Health's Annual Summer Scientific Meeting was held on 30th & 31st of May 2018 in Dublin. Professor Kevin P. Balanda from the IPH presented the results from the 'Lifetime financial costs of childhood obesity/overweight in Ireland and Northern Ireland'. The JANPA/safefood project estimated that the obesity/overweight in the island's 2015 childhood population was associated with lifetime excess financial costs of €7.1 (in 2015 values). Direct health care costs accounted for approximately 25% of this total costs. The biggest cost category was lost productivity due to premature death that accounted for approximately 60% of total excess lifetime costs on the island. The study highlights gender differences and North/South differences in the magnitude of the cost categories.

Contact Prof Balanda at kevin.balanda@publichealth.ie

JANPA http://www.janpa.eu/

To view the presentation, click here

Faculty of Public Health Medicine

To find out more information about IPH work on obesity, visit the Public Health Well

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25 May 2018

IPH contributes to the JANPA Skills Building Workshop to ECO2018

The ECO2018 Congress on Obesity was held from 23rd to 26th of May 2018 in Vienna, Austria. Professor Kevin P. Balanda from the IPH contributed a session to the JANPA Workshop. The brief session looked at mobilising data and research to estimate the lifetime costs of childhood obesity using the JANPA costing model. It outlined the data and research required, described some of the challenges and gave tips for overcoming these challenges. It ended with a brief overview of the opportunities that exist for countries in conducting such study in their country.

Contact Prof Balanda at kevin.balanda@publichealth.ie

To view the presentation, click here

JANPA

To find out more information about IPH work on obesity, visit the Public Health Well

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25 May 2018

IPH presents results of a study of the lifetime cost of childhood obesity on the island of Ireland to ECO2018

The ECO2018 Congress on Obesity was held from 23rd to 26th of May 2018 in Vienna, Austria. Professor Kevin P. Balanda from the IPH delivered an invited talk to the Congress on the 'Lifetime financial costs of childhood obesity/overweight in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The JANPA/safefood project estimated that the obesity/overweight in the island's 2015 childhood population was associated with lifetime excess financial costs of €7.1 (in 2015 values). Direct health care costs accounted for approximately 25% of this total costs. The biggest cost category was lost productivity due to premature death that accounted for approximately 60% of total excess lifetime costs on the island.

Contact Prof Balanda at kevin.balanda@publichealth.ie

To view the presentation, click here

JANPA

To find out more information about IPH work on obesity, visit the Public Health Well

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21 May 2018

Poster "Lifetime financial cost of childhood obesity on the island of Ireland" presented at the 6th ASOI Annual Conference

The 2018 meeting was held on the 14th of May 2018 in association with the Division of Population Health Sciences at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. This year the focus was on the environmental determinants of food consumption and obesity.

Professor Kevin P. Balanda from the Institute of Public health was delighted to present a poster on the Lifetime financial cost of childhood obesity on the island of Ireland.

For more information on the conference, click here.

To view the poster, click here.

To find out more information about IPH work on obesity, visit the Health Well Obesity Hub.

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8 May 2018

ASOI Conference 2018

The Association for the Study of Obesity on the Island of Ireland (ASOI) will hold its 2018 Annual Conference on May 14th 2018 in association with the Division of Population Health Sciences at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The conference will take in the main campus of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, 123 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2.

This year the focus is on the Environmental determinants of food consumption and obesity. Send your abstract to be in with a chance to win the ASOI Award for best submitted abstract (see abstract submission details below).

Online registration for the conference is available here: asoi.web.ie/events/

ASOI 2018 Programme

ASOI 2018 Registration Form

ASOI 2018 Call for Abstracts

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10 April 2018

Joint Action on Nutrition and Physical Activity (JANPA)

WP4| COST OF CHILDHOOD OBESITY

The overall aim of this EU project was to contribute to halting the rise of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents by 2020. JANPA stands for “Joint Action on Nutrition and Physical Activity”.

Considerable work has been done on the healthcare costs of adult obesity. Impacts of childhood obesity, however, are rarely included in such obesity costing studies. More work was necessary to understand the impacts of childhood obesity as well as exploring non-healthcare (societal) costs in more detail. JANPA Work Package 4 starts to fill this gap by “developing the evidence-based economic rationale for action on childhood obesity”.

The technical objectives of Work Package 4 are:

to describe the lifetime impact and cost of childhood obesity
to assess the benefits of reducing childhood obesity by 1% and 5%.

This was attempted in seven European countries.

Professor Kevin Balanda (kevin.balanda@publichealth.ie) led JANP WP4. The JANPA WP4 costing model was implemented in an adaptation of the UKHF’s existing software.

JANPA WP4 was a very challenging project and its final deliverables are now available. In particular, final figures for Ireland and Northern Ireland are presented in Deliverable D4.6.

JANPA

JANPA WP4

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