Obesity Prevention Initiative

The Mailman Obesity Prevention Initiative provides leadership, organizational support, and coordination to foster new scientific approaches to population-level obesity research. Our goal is to discover evidence for effective societal approaches for obesity prevention. Our mission is to:

• Create interdisciplinary working groups to synthesize and evaluate the existing evidence base and identify inferences, knowledge gaps, and, most importantly, future directions to stop the epidemic
• Integrate the multiple factors of different scientific systems to identify and address the drivers, determinants, and solutions of energy imbalance and excess weight gain
• Develop what is necessary, what is sufficient, and what investments are needed to present a meaningful return on investment
• Sustain research and engage the community and policymakers within and beyond public health, forming coalitions that develop effective solutions
• Foster collaborative research, expand infrastructure, partner with outside organizations, and generate training opportunities
• Establish the Mailman School as a go-to knowledge hub—a center of excellence—and a leader in obesity prevention at the population level