What is EURO-PREVOB?

Levels of obesity are increasing throughout Europe and there is a clear need for European countries to coordinate their scientific, regulatory and policy responses to this challenge.

EURO-PREVOB is a European Coordination Action linking science and policy-making to tackle obesity. Funded by the European Commission, the project promotes and supports collaboration across existing networks, to tackle the social and economic determinants of obesity in Europe, including developments that recognise the specificities of sub-regional groupings of countries.

EURO-PREVOB is funded by the European Commission, 6th Framework Programme, Priority 2.1, Scientific Support to Policy (SSP). The project spans three years, from 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2010. The EURO-PREVOB consortium consists of 14 partners from 10 European countries, a multi-disciplinary team spanning a variety of key disciplines.

The specific objectives of EURO-PREVOB are to:

• Improve the understanding of the broad determinants of and inequalities in obesity;
• Identify other policy initiatives with a potential impact on the determinants of obesity;
• Develop and pilot tools to assess the potential impact of policies on determinants of obesity at the sub-regional level;
• Develop guidelines and recommendations for best practice.

Contribution to policy development

The EURO-PREVOB project findings will inform policy-making, a key element of public health strategies for obesity prevention, and contribute to best practice in obesity prevention and to the broad dissemination and streamlining of actions against obesity in Europe. Policy tools are being developed to assist obesity policy analysis, identifying the opportunities and limitations of policy transfer to and among EU countries. EURO-PREVOB is assessing the applicability of the policy analysis tools in five sub-regions of Europe.

Contact the Project Coordinator's office

Pamela Harling EURO-PREVOB Administrative Coordinator London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Keppel Street London WC1E 7HT Telephone: (44) 20 7612 7811 Fax: (44) 20 7612 7812 E-mail: europrevob@lshtm.ac.uk