Foodback
Dr Stefanie Vandevjvere, Senior Research Fellow, Population Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Science. Smartphone application and analytics developed by Dr Jamie Diprose, Research IT Specialist, Richard Hosking, PhD Candidate, Centre for eResearch, University of Auckland
The background
The International Network for Food and Obesity Research, Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS) is a global network of a public-interest organisations and researchers, coordinated by the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland that aims to monitor, benchmark and support public and private sector actions to create healthy food environments and reduce obesity. The network initiatives are also tied into the strategy of global monitoring systems and action plan that led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the effort to prevent and control Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs). Foodback project aims to empower people to create healthier community food places as part of the INFORMAS’ effort to prevent and control non-communicable diseases.
The “Foodback” initiative
The project is led by Dr Stefanie Vandevjvere who is part of the leadership team of INFORMAS. Stefanie believes that one of the ways to make real progress is to engage the public to create healthier community food places. The Foodback study focuses on the development of a Smartphone app for crowd-sourcing the types of foods advertised and sold in and around local community settings, including schools, medical centres, hospitals, supermarkets, takeaways and sport and recreation centres. It also contains social features to enable people to post stories about healthy and healthy foods being sold in their communities as well as the ability to comment and click like other users’ posts. The data will be used to better understand the healthiness of the food landscape in New Zealand, and to help encourage and support local ‘change agents’ to make positive, healthy changes to foods advertised and sold in their settings.
