SPHOSIG Introduction
The Scottish Directors of Public Health established the Scottish Public Health Obesity Special Interest Group (SPHOSIG) in 2014 to reinvigorate work to address the obesity epidemic in Scotland. The group is chaired by Drew Walker, DPH, NHS Tayside and supported by the Scottish Public Health Network (ScotPHN).
Current membership of the SPHOSIG is:
- Annie Anderson (University of Dundee)
- Caroline Comerford (NHS Grampian)
- Ann Conacher (ScotPHN)
- Ruth Jepson (University of Edinburgh)
- Ann Kerr (NHS Health Scotland)
- Mike Lean (University of Glasgow)
- Graham Mackenzie (NHS Lothian)
- Phil Mackie (ScotPHN)
- Michele McCoy (NHS Dumfries&Galloway)
- Fergus Millan / Tony Rednall (Scottish Government)
- Susan Pryde / Heather Peace (Food Standards Agency)
- Laura Stewart (NHS Tayside)
- Joyce Thompson (NHS Tayside)
- Drew Walker (NHS Tayside) – Chair
SPHOSIG has overseen two projects recently:
- To comment on the child healthy weight programme at the request of the Scottish Government with particular consideration of the recent evaluation undertaken by NHS Health Scotland, in order to make recommendations on the future direction of the programme. The SPHOSIG established an expert group to guide this work which was also chaired by Drew Walker.
- To undertake a stocktake of how well actions identified within the Obesity Route Map (ORM) (Scottish Government, 2010) have been achieved.
The report on the child healthy weight programme was submitted to the Ministers in August 2014. It was published in January 2015. Membership of the expert group that guided the development of the report can be found in the report.
The report of the review of the ORM was published in December 2015.
Both reports can be found on the ‘Obesity’ project page.