The Policy Report: Format
Aim - Diet and Cancer Report
The aim of the Second Expert Report Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective was to identify, review and assess all the relevant research to date, in order to generate a comprehensive series of cancer prevention recommendations with goals both for people and for public health purposes.
Aim - Policy Report
The Policy Report is a companion to the diet and cancer report and addresses the policy implications of achieving its recommendations in relation to dietary patterns (including alcohol) overweight and obesity, breastfeeding, and physical activity.
In the development of the Report, two systematic literature reviews (SLRs) related to policy were undertaken. However, the evidence gathering and assessment for the Policy Report is much more varied than for the Diet and Cancer Report, and the two SLRs are supplemented with additional information that has been identified since the end of the SLRs by the Secretariat, Panel members and by Peer Reviewers.
The Report makes a number of recommendations aimed at policy-makers and decision-takers at international, national and local level.
It also provides estimates for how much cancer could be avoided through healthy patterns of diet, body fatness and physical activity.
Structure
The Policy Report is divided into 3 parts:
Part 1 Background and need for action
Chapter 1, A rational basis for policy and action, is a general introduction to the Report. It focuses on the aims and remit, as well as making reference to other relevant reports and setting out the context for the Policy Report.
Chapter 2, The case for action, highlights how increasing obesity, physical inactivity, urbanisation, economic globalisation and ageing populations are contributing to the global burden of disease worldwide. Cancer is a preventable disease and the chapter highlights the benefits of prevention: people living longer and healthier lives, with less disability. Importantly, taking positive measures to prevent cancer also reduces the risk of other chronic diseases. It is therefore a cost-effective approach at a time when ageing populations are increasingly reliant on cancer treatment to control the disease, causing a financial strain on global health systems.
Part 2 Evidence and evaluation
The four chapters in Part 2 explain the environmental, economic, social and personal drivers that affect behaviour. They present evidence of these various drivers and of how they can impact on the behaviour of individuals in an intentional (eg smoking) or unintentional (eg meat prices in Japan) way and can have positive or negative effects on behaviours related to cancer. The evidence is summarised in matrices according to both pertinence and the potential for impact of the action. Opportunities for action with reasonable assessments for both these domains are evaluated. Case studies on the topics are included.
The evidence is divided into four broad dimensions:
Chapter 3, The physical environmental dimension
Chapter 4, The economic dimension
Chapter 5, The social dimension
Chapter 6, The personal dimension
Part 3 Recommendations
Chapter 7, Principles, explains how the Panel arrived at the recommendations and the rationale used to develop them. The headings are:
Action is needed
The public health approach
All actors to work in concert
Prevention over the life course
Cancer in context
Aspiration and achievement
Strategic action
Chapter 8, Policies and actions, sets out the Panel's recommendations, which are designed as a basis for programmes that fulfil the Diet and Cancer Report recommendations in a global context. Each is aimed at a specific 'actor' (eg government). These actors are:
Multinational bodies
Civil society organisations
Government
Industry
Media
Schools
Workplaces and institutions
Health and other professionals
People