Obesity prevention and management: Identifying needs and tailoring strategies in Medicare Locals and practices

Primary Health Care Research Conference, Canberra

Presentation slides are available here

Aims & rationale/Objectives

Obesity is a major health problem in Australia and PHC has an important role in its assessment, prevention and management. Many Medicare Locals are planning or reviewing their approach for addressing obesity in their area. The aim of the workshop was to provide an approach for developing and evaluating obesity strategies that are tailored to needs at the practice and Medicare Local level.

Target audience

Those interested addressing obesity across the life cycle through primary health care; in particular Medicare Local and local Health District staff, program/service managers, and PHC clinicians.

Audience participation

This workshop explored key methods to identify groups at risk of obesity and obesity-related illness especially parents and young children and disadvantaged patients with low health literacy and how to develop strategies tailored to their needs. Through a series of case studies and interactive tasks we contrasted participants' approaches with our own experiences while building skills on how to: 

- Align strategies with local needs and priorities 

- Develop evaluations which can determine what works, for whom and why based on the RE-AIM framework. 

- Provide a comprehensive range of approaches and measures suitable for use in the field. 

A plenary discussion was used to synthesise key insights into recommendations for implementation.

Presentation type

Workshop

Citation

Harris M, Spooner C, Stocks N, Denney-Wilson E, Faruqi N. (2014). Obesity prevention and management: Identifying needs and tailoring strategies in Medicare Locals and practices. In: 2014 Primary Health Care Research Conference: Program & Abstracts. Primary Health Care Research and Information Service, Australia. phcris.org.au/conference/abstract/7773