Details

Purpose: This symposium will introduce delegates to the highly innovative, systems-orientated pan-European Ending Childhood Obesity (ECHO) zone programme.

Rationale: The population prevalence of childhood obesity is the result of our obesogenic environments, and as such, there is an urgent need to develop, test, and evaluate novel approaches to change these environments. To do so, we need a raft of interventions to be delivered simultaneously through a systems approach. Moreover, population responses to interventions can now also be simulated using the vast amounts of data available in the 21^st century, at individual and societal levels, enabling optimization of interventions to a specific contexts.

Objectives:

1.      To offer attendees with an up-to-date overview of the advancements made in the prevention of childhood obesity.

2.      To present the rationale for-, the approach to-, and proposed evaluation of- the ECHO zone programme.

3.      To provide attendees with an opportunity to collaborate with the ECHO zone programme.

Summary: The ECHO zone programme works towards the prevention of childhood obesity amongst 0-6 year olds. This will be achieved by taking a whole-of-community systems-based approach, where representatives from local government, public and private sectors and civil society in eight European cities and one in New Zealand take part in shifting society towards prevention (referred to as ECHO zones). ECHO zones will take a compelx data-driven approach to design and continuously improve preventative actions. These data will simultaneously build a digital representation of the city, the Digital City Twin (DCT). The DCTs will be integrated into each ECHO zone so that potential actions, and configurations of actions, can be simulated to understand their potential effect upon the system. These nine ECHO zones will pave the way for scaling of successful practices to achieve the long term impact of improved child health. Within this symposium, we aim to outline the proposed plans for the ECHO zone programme.

Format: Bergsten shall chair the symposium and serve as the discussant at the end. Ring-Dimitriou and Ødegård shall present the background and rationale for the ECHO zone programme (20 minutes). Pettersen shall then provide a detailed overview of the ECHO zone model (20 minutes). Engsner shall then describe the multi-methodological approach that is proposed to evaluate the ECHO zone programme (20 minutes).

Interaction: The discussant shall facilitate a 15-minute interactive question and answer session with attendees, and highlight ways in which interested attendees can become more involved in the wider network.

Speaker