DEDIPAC’S Last Publication: A Summary of Findings

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DEDIPAC, the Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity Knowledge Hub, was the first action taken by the JPI Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life, to better align research across Europe on healthy dietary and physical activity behavior. Over the past three years, around 300 researchers from 13 countries have provided better insight into the ‘causes of the causes’ of important, non-communicable diseases across Europe to translate this knowledge into more effective promotion of healthy diet and physical activity.

DEDIPAC has generated 38 publications until now, the more recent one summarizes major DEDIPAC’s findings on the state of the art, what was achieved in terms of furthering measurement and monitoring, and building toolboxes for further research and practice. Additionally, DEDIPAC proposes some of the next steps that are now required to move forward in this field.

Through systematic literature reviews, DEDIPAC found a great deal of variation in terms of assessment methods used and reported behavioral outcome variables. This means that information on these behaviors across all of Europe is still scarce and that studies in this field are difficult to compare. This may stem from a lack of data on determinants.

Concrete products developed in the context of DEDIPAC include determinant frameworks for dietary, physical activity and sedentary behavior. Open-access toolboxes were also created that provide measurement methods for this behavior and its determinants, as well as methods to develop, implement and evaluate interventions and policies. The toolboxes and all of the DEDIPAC publications, including the summarizing article, can be found at www.dedipac.eu.

DEDIPAC is supporting the Knowledge Hub continuation and further commitment, in an effort to create a sustainable European network centre for research and expertise on behavioral nutrition and physical activity.

Subjects

Nutrition