HOPE project description
WHAT?
The HOPE project aims to bring the scientific knowledge on overweight, obesity and their determinants together and use the expertise of researchers all over Europe to help to tackle the obesity epidemic.
This project aims to integrate and further enrich the widely available and diverse knowledge on all these topics across Europe and use this information for designing various scenarios that will provide entry-points for policy making, and will help the European Commission and member states to set priorities for curbing the obesity epidemic.
The HOPE project focuses on overweight and obesity as one of the main determinants of loss of healthy life years and of health disparities in Europe.
In particular, it focuses on expanding understanding of the key lifestyle factors nutrition and physical activity, which are the major proximal determinants of overweight and obesity. It aims at identifying:
- socio-economic and environmental determinants of these behaviours;
- effective intervention settings and approaches to address these determinants aiming at obesity prevention and reductions in inequalities in obesity-related health risks.
WHO?
The HOPE project consortium consists of a broad variety of obesity, epidemiology, nutrition, physical activity, public health and health promotion from 14 countries. The project is financial supported by the European Union. For more details click on 'Who we are' on the left.
WHY?
Obesity is one of the main health determinants in terms of burden of disease in Europe, accounting for up to 7% of all healthcare expenditures. It is largely determined by modifiable environmental and life-style factors, which offers a great potential for prevention.
Successful primary prevention could reduce future demands for health care associated with obesity-related chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
In order to design successful primary prevention campaigns, thorough understanding of the behavioural and environmental determinants with a potential for modification is needed. This should take into account the situation in different socio-economic groups.
