The work is structured in Knowledge, Maps, and Tools. In terms of Knowledge, we set out to harness the extensive amount of research that has already been carried out but is scattered and requires structured reviewing. Hence, most of the work in the first 18 months was to identify the different causes of obesity through literature reviews. In particular, we have started five systematic reviews in WP1 to understand the biological, sociocultural and environmental risks of obesity. Within each review, the role of SEP stays central in our research question. Three ongoing systematic reviews in WP3 aim to understand the behavioural causes of obesity: one for dietary behaviours, one for physical activity and one for sedentary behaviours, with focus on crucial (transitioning) life stages. These eight systematic reviews will form the cornerstone of the integrated causal pathways from genes to environments, behaviours and, ultimately, obesity. This was deemed essential for structuring the knowledge base, deepening our understanding, but also crucial for the development of the risk screener that we develop, a tool that will help health professionals calculate the risks of obesity in the general population. We also completed two systematic reviews in WP4 on successful obesity policies in low SEP communities. The first review focused on the types of policies, which showed that structural policies such as food composition policies and integration of physical activity into healthcare system tasks, combining with public education would probably be the most suitable for low SEP communities. The second review showed effective implementation strategies in low SEP communities, including local stakeholder engagement, planning tools, leadership training, incentive structures, monitoring systems, cultural adaptations, use of volunteers, and digital engagement of target groups. These identified policies as well as the knowledge from the various reviews will be used as input in the microsimulation models to assess potential impact on obesity in the European context.
In terms of Maps, we have successfully extracted and obtained geographic information systems (GIS) data on crucial components of the obesogenic environment (such as food environment, walkability and sports facilities) from different sources, and mapped these for neighbourhoods at high resolution across the entire European region. We are currently assessing their quality, validity and reliability by comparing them against local ‘silver standard’ benchmarks. We are also examining their association with health behaviours (dietary behaviours, walking and physical activity) in large population studies across Europe as a means of validation for these measures. With regards to our fourth objective, two OBCT-associated Lancet studies have shown that the prevalence of obesity in Europe has shown some recent plateau, however, these trends are not uniform across all European countries. With in-depth analyses at European scale we are currently zooming in to these country-specific trends.
In terms of Tools, we have recently created a tool to measure community’s readiness to take (policy) action against obesity. This measurement tool is part of the overall evaluation protocol for the pilot of the policy implementation tools which is currently being finalized and feed into the set of co-created implementation tools.
Internally, we organised three in-person consortium meetings (general assemblies): the kick-off in Amsterdam in November ‘23, the general assembly in Madrid in November ‘24; and currently preparing for Oslo GA in September ‘25. We have also organised two internal workshops, one on microsimulation (March ‘24) and the other on co-creation (September ‘24) to introduce these research tools to all researchers within the consortium.
