11th Meeting of the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) Meeting Report (2018)

On 22-23 May 2018, representatives of 37 Member States of the WHO European Region, together with experts from WHO collaborating centres, partner institutions and observers, gathered in Vienna, Austria for the 11th meeting of the WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI). The initiative, coordinated by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, has established a Europe-wide standardized system for routinely measuring trends in overweight and obesity in primary school children aged 6-9 years.

After 11 years of robust surveillance of childhood overweight and obesity, COSI has continuously grown, with more than 40 Member States now involved and more than 300,000 school-age children being measured and surveyed based on a common protocol and approach. At the meeting, participants discussed the results of the 4th round of COSI data collection (in which 35 countries participated), reviewed the arrangements for WHO support for data collection, analysis and reporting and discussed plans for the 5th round of data collection. The meeting also included a training workshop on the interpretation, use and presentation of COSI data.