Oral Presentation Australian & New Zealand Obesity Society 2015 Annual Scientific Meeting

Chronic disease prevention: building a system that’s more than the sum of its parts (#60)

Sonia Wutzke 1
  1. The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, Ultimo, NSW, Australia

Multi-level, multi-sector, systemic strategies are needed to tackle the complex problem of chronic disease. The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre is researching and developing systemic approaches to the prevention of lifestyle-related chronic health problems. The Centre’s work is co-produced by a team of 31 investigators (academic researchers, policy makers and practitioners) from more than 20 universities, government, non-government and private sector agencies. Combined, the Centre’s work plan will provide information, frameworks and capacity to assist action and decision-making for Australian investment in a population-wide, efficient, effective and equitable system for the prevention of lifestyle-related chronic disease. This presentation: (1) provides an overview of the structure and work of the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre; (2) identifies how the team are applying perspectives and methods from systems science to improve the design, implementation and evaluation of policies and programs for complex problems; (3) outlines a number of projects of the Centre to illustrate progress to date; and (4) concludes with an exploration of the notion of research co-production and the practical realities of achieving this model of knowledge creation and synthesis at scale.