Communicating the results of the Surveillance System on children’s BMI, eating habits and physical activity

to their families and paediatricians

Background

In 2008 the Ministry of Health initiated the national

research project PInC -Programme of Information and

Communication- which aims to promote awareness and

empowerment processes in the population to enable

individuals and communities to make informed choices for

healthy lifestyles. This contributes to the Italian version of the

WHO Programme Gaining Health (the European Strategy for

the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases).

Several information and communication

activities and initiatives have been planned, considering

that for effective communication, it is crucial to translate

technical-scientific information into understandable language

so that messages are clear, and meaningful for their

audience, whose involvement in the production may be very

important.

The first informative materials were developed for

the data collected by the Italian surveillance system named

OKkio alla SALUTE. This concerns children’s Body Mass

Index (BMI), eating habits and physical activity and is

coordinated by the National Centre for Epidemiology,

Surveillance and Health Promotion of the Istituto Superiore di

Sanità.

Cattaneo C.*, De Mei B.*, Perra A.*, Fontana G.**;°, Lamberti A.*;**, Maggio Cavallaro G.*, Possenti V.*, Spinelli A.*

*National Centre for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome; **University of Milan, Milan; °University of Washington, Washington DC

Results

16 of the 18 Regions participating to OKkio alla SALUTE have evaluated these materials.

Health professionals have delivered questionnaires to 813 parents of children in 49 primary-schools, and 176 paediatricians.

Parents evaluated the leaflet positively, but criticised the language and suggested to:

- reduce the number of messages underlining those which are essential

- explain better what should be done to improve the overall health and the well-being of their children giving clear messages.

They also recommended to improve the explanations using clear graphics.

Paediatricians suggested that the written part should be more concise, leaving more space for graphs and charts.

TP-WED-240

Methods

An informative leaflet for parents and an informative

chart for paediatricians have been produced:the leaflet contains the important results and general advice

for the parents, the chart emphasises the important role of paediatricians as

well as presenting the main results.

These materials were presented to the regional

representatives of OKkio alla SALUTE for a first review.

After, they were evaluated with respect to their contents,

graphics and development using two questionnaires:

one for parents and the other for paediatricians.

Both the research projects OKkio alla SALUTE and PInC-Programme of Information and Communication to support the objectives of Gaining Health

have been funded by the Ministry of Health / National Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

For more information contact: Barbara De Mei barbara.demei@iss.it +39 6 4990 4272

Conclusions

To better communicate health risks and information to the

public for promoting healthy lifestyles, the opinions and

comments of the recipients of informative materials

should be used

to improve the drafts produced by communication

professionals.

Objectives

Because the data, collected on 45,590 children attending

primary school, showed a high prevalence of overweight

and obesity (36%), bad eating habits and sedentary

lifestyles, and low parental perception of the problem,

two target populations were considered:

parents and paediatricians.