The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, together with the University of Washington Departments of Health Services and Psychology, will sponsor a two and one-half day scientific conference titled """"""""Promoting Dietary Change in Communities: Applying Existing Models of Dietary Change to Population-Based Interventions."""""""" The objectives of the conference are: 1) to identify theoretical models and strategies that have been proposed for changing the health behavior of individuals that are likely to be successful in bringing about long-term changes in dietary behavior when applied to groups; 2) to describe the research needed to make these models and strategies applicable to group interventions and the research needed to develop the models; and 3) to issue a conference proceedings that will summarize the characteristics of promising models and their components and describe future research directions. These objectives will be reached by bringing together 32 invited participants who represent the existing areas of expertise in the field of behavior change at the individual and community levels. Each participant will prepare a paper for circulation prior to the conference, participate in general discussion, and edit and return the paper for publication of the conference proceedings. The proceedings will be circulated to all active investigators in the field as well as relevant research institutions and programs. This conference will be the first in a series of five gatherings that are expected to be held every two or three years, depending on the rate of scientific progress in the field. The long-term goal of these conferences will be to advance the development and implementation of population-based intervention strategies for dietary change.
