Community and policy based obesity prevention interventions: What is needed to achieve sustainable change?

Economic evaluation at the Community Level

Lisa Gold, Deakin University, VIC

Lisa described the challenges of capturing the complexity that is necessary for effective community-based obesity prevention interventions. She provided more understanding of the contribution and complications of including economic evaluations in community interventions and the importance of having a health economist as part of the team from the outset. Flexibility is the key to operating within real world settings adjusting to how people operate in their daily work/life and adjust data and data collection methods accordingly.
Lisa explained the potential for assessing whether the evaluation was ‘worthwhile’ for who and at what cost? She also noted the difficulty of basing economic evaluations on peoples’ values when values may shift over time, particularly as a result of the intervention. She referred the audience to www.ahes.org.au if they wanted to find a health economist.
 
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