Obesity and unemployment: What’s the link, and how can we genuinely engage communities in addressing the two?

Did you know that high levels of obesity often coincide with high rates of unemployment? A recent Gallup poll shows that the longer a person is unemployed, the higher the rates of people living with obesity, with rates reaching up to 32.7% after a year or more of unemployment.

C3 is one of 16 organisations from across Southern England and Northern France who have come together to tackle these two issues holistically via ASPIRE (Adding to Social capital and individual Potential In disadvantaged REgions).

Watch the seminar below to learn more about ASPIRE and C3’s unique way of partnering with communities to assess how their environments help or hinder their health through our innovative mobile tool CHESS.

About the speakers

Dr Denise Stevens
Denise is president and founder of US-based MATRIX Public Health Solutions, creators of the CHESS™ community-engagement strategy used by C3. Denise was the Director of Evaluation for Community Interventions for Health which was the first and most comprehensive multinational pilot study focused on the use of structural interventions with community coalition building, health education and social media to impact the burden of chronic disease. She advises on evaluation, and C3’s CHESS community engagement programme.

Alice Chapman-Hatchett
Alice is Director of the Health and Europe Centre, a social enterprise linking local health professionals with colleagues across Europe to work together on societal challenges in public health, bringing European learning, practice and policy to the local NHS community. Much of this is achieved via bidding for EU funding: she and her team are currently managing projects worth €60m, focussing on a variety of public health issues including dementia and type 2 diabetes.

Alice studied modern languages at the University of London and continued her studies to become an interpreter and translator. She has extensive European and public sector experience and has developed projects and partnerships in Europe and further afield. She has worked in European Affairs for local and regional government in the UK and has 12 years’ experience of working in the public health field.

Photo courtesy of © World Obesity.