Benchmarking for accountability on obesity prevention: evaluation of the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) in Australia (2016-2020).

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Despite broad agreement on the need for comprehensive policy action to improve the healthiness of food environments, implementation of recommended policies has been slow and fragmented. Benchmarking is increasingly being used to strengthen accountability for action. However, there have been few evaluations of benchmarking and accountability initiatives to understand their contribution to policy change. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the Healthy Food Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) Australia initiative (2016-2020) that assessed Australian governments on their progress in implementing recommended policies for improving food environments.

Design

A convergent mixed methods approach was employed incorporating data from online surveys (conducted in 2017 a

SUBMITTER: Kwon J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8883784 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature