National Food and Nutrition Centre, Suva, Fiji.
Obes Rev. 2011 Nov;12 Suppl 2:12-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00911.x.
Policy makers throughout the world are struggling to find effective ways to prevent the rising trend of obesity globally, particularly among children. The Pacific Obesity Prevention in Communities project was the first large-scale, intervention research project conducted in the Pacific aiming to prevent obesity in adolescents. The project spanned four countries: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. This paper reports on the strengths and challenges experienced from this complex study implemented from 2004 to 2009 across eight cultural groups in different community settings. The key strengths of the project were its holistic collaborative approach, participatory processes and capacity building. The challenges inherent in such a large complex project were underestimated during the project's development. These related to the scale, complexity, duration, low research capacity in some sites and overall coordination across four different countries. Our experiences included the need for a longer lead-in time prior to intervention for training and up-skilling of staff in Fiji and Tonga, investment in overall coordination, data quality management across all sites and the need for realistic capacity building requirements for research staff. The enhanced research capacity and skills across all sites include the development and strengthening of research centres, knowledge translation and new obesity prevention projects.
世界各地的政策制定者都在努力寻找有效的方法来防止肥胖在全球范围内的上升趋势，特别是在儿童中。太平洋社区肥胖预防项目是在太平洋地区开展的第一个旨在预防青少年肥胖的大规模干预研究项目。该项目跨越了四个国家：澳大利亚、新西兰、斐济和汤加。本文报告了从 2004 年到 2009 年在不同社区环境中的 8 个不同文化群体中实施这一复杂研究的优势和挑战。该项目的主要优势在于其整体合作方法、参与式进程和能力建设。在项目开发过程中，低估了如此大型复杂项目所固有的挑战。这些挑战涉及规模、复杂性、持续时间、一些地点的研究能力较低以及四个不同国家的整体协调。我们的经验包括在斐济和汤加需要在干预前进行更长时间的培训和技能提升，投资于整体协调、所有地点的数据质量管理以及研究人员的现实能力建设要求。所有地点的研究能力和技能都得到了增强，包括研究中心的发展和加强、知识转化和新的肥胖预防项目。
