Understanding key influencers’ attitudes and beliefs about healthy public policy change for obesity prevention.

OBJECTIVE
As overweight and obesity is a risk factor for chronic diseases, the development of environmental and healthy public policy interventions across multiple sectors has been identified as a key strategy to address this issue.

METHODS
In 2009, a survey was developed to assess the attitudes and beliefs regarding health promotion principles, and the priority and acceptability of policy actions to prevent obesity and chronic diseases, among key policy influencers in Alberta and Manitoba, Canada. Surveys were mailed to 1,765 key influencers from five settings: provincial government, municipal government, school boards, print media companies, and workplaces with greater than 500 employees. A total of 236 surveys were completed with a response rate of 15.0%.

RESULTS
Findings indicate nearly unanimous influencer support for individual-focused policy approaches and high support for some environmental policies. Restrictive environmental and economic policies received weakest support. Obesity was comparable to smoking with respect to perceptions as a societal responsibility versus a personal responsibility, boding well for the potential of environmental policy interventions for obesity prevention.

CONCLUSIONS
This level of influencer support provides a platform for more evidence to be brokered to policy influencers about the effectiveness of environmental policy approaches to obesity prevention.