Partnerships in obesity prevention: maximising co‐benefits

Abstract

Issue addressed Partnerships were used to increase healthy eating and active living in children for the Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle (OPAL) program, a systems-wide, community-based childhood obesity prevention program in South Australia. This part of the multi-component evaluation examines stakeholders' perceptions of how OPAL staff worked in partnership and factors contributing to strong partnerships. Methods Pre- and post-interviews and focus groups with multi-sector stakeholders (n=131) across six OPAL communities were analysed using NVivo8 qualitative data analysis software. Results Stakeholders reflected positively on projects developed in partnership with OPAL, reporting that staff worked to establish co-benefits. They identified several factors that contributed to the strengthening of partnerships: staff skills, visibility, resources and sustainability. Conclusions Rather than implementing projects with stakeholders with shared organisational goals, local shared projects were implemented that included a breadth of co-benefits, allowing multi-sector stakeholders to meet their own organisational goals. Practitioners who have the capacity to be flexible, persistent, knowledgeable and skilled communicators are required to negotiate projects, achieving benefit for both health and stakeholders' organisational goals. So what? Engaging in partnership practice to broker co-benefits at the micro or program level has been an effective model for community engagement and change in OPAL. It foregrounds the need for the inclusion of value to partners, which differs from situations in which organisations come together around common goals.

Adoption, Sustainability, and Dissemination of Chronic Disease Prevention Policies in Community-Based Organizations

“…In the future, to encourage the spread of healthy policies, active dissemination of policies might be achieved by making use of existing networks of organizations serving the same community. Recent research has suggested that community collaborations/partnerships can be used as an approach to health promotion within communities (An et al, 2017; Jones & Verity, 2017; Tung et al, 2018). Faith-based institutions in a community often develop networks either by denomination or by region and have the capacity to reach several members to promote health (Tagai et al, 2017).…”

System reform in the human services: what role can health promotion play?

“…The generation of interdisciplinary research findings, and respective research translation efforts, supports the realisation of co-benefits between sectors. Recent scholarship relating to healthy places and spaces, 17 partnerships in obesity prevention, 18 and the intersection between food security and climate change 19 provides three useful examples of such work. Interestingly, 'increasing competition and contestability' is seldom a feature of research that aims to promote improved population health outcomes.…”

Welke factoren bepalen de implementatie van een lokale integrale aanpak van overgewicht bij kinderen?

“…Het is dus van belang om professionals langdurig betrokken te houden en te binden aan de aanpak. Het creëren van co-benefits kan hierbij ondersteunend zijn [22]; hierbij tracht men de te implementeren aanpak te laten aansluiten bij de doelstellingen waarop het primaire proces van de professional zich al richt. Zo kan het bijvoorbeeld nuttig zijn om voor scholen inzichtelijk te maken dat de leerprestaties van kinderen verbeteren door gezonde voeding en voldoende beweging [23].…”