Malaysia

The INFORMAS team in Malaysia is led by Professor Dr. Tilakavati Karupaiah at Taylor’s University. Two process modules of INFORMAS (public and private sector) have been implemented here, representing the first national food environment policy survey in Malaysia to be conducted. The Malaysia team was supported by INFORMAS module leaders, Prof. Boyd Swinburn, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bridget Kelly, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gary Sacks and Dr. Stefanie Vandevijvere.  These activities came under an International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funded project titled, “Mapping the implementation of priority food environment policies to tackle diet-related non-communicable diseases in South-East Asia: Comparison between three countries” and involved Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Ng See Hoe (William) was the PhD student/ Project Administrator for this project in Malaysia.

1. Food-Environment Policy Index (Food-EPI) – Data collection for the public sector module started in August 2016 with a Food-EPI Expert Rating of policy evidence on 11^th April 2017. Experts from non-government organisations (NGO), professional societies and academia were involved with the rating process. Early findings were disseminated at the ICN symposium in 2017 with country clearance and the Final Technical report was released on 23^rd July 2018 by the Deputy Director-General of Health. The findings were also published in the Sept/October issue of the Public Health Nutrition [see output 5].
2. Business Impact Assessment (BIA) – Obesity – Data collection for the private sector, commenced in early August 2017. The study adopted the INFORMAS protocol with adjustments to suit the Malaysian context such as (a) the establishment of Expert and Reviewer Panels to perform the assessment and formulate recommendations; (b) application of ‘simple majority rule’ in ratings; (c) random market surveys to complement the evidence collection for non-consenting companies. Later, findings were disseminated firstly in a closed-door meeting with the companies, followed by a public forum with the key stakeholders such as government stakeholders, professional organisations, NGOs and others on 29^th July 2019. Post dissemination sessions included the official delivery of the full technical report completed in November 2019. The findings were published in the Globalization and Health [see output 14].

A new 3-year IDRC-funded research titled “Comparing the extent and nature of unhealthy food and drink TV marketing to girls and boys across nine countries in Asia” was secured with support from INFORMAS (Prof. Dr. Boyd Swinburn). The project is led by the Malaysia team (Prof. Dr. Tilakavati Karupaiah) with eight country teams, comprising Bangladesh, China, India, Mongolia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. This joint effort will aim to assess the exposure and power of TV food marketing in these countries and build critical country-level evidence of unhealthy food marketing targeting children. Evidence outcomes will inform relevant Asian stakeholders on local policy frameworks’ progress to control unhealthy food marketing and strengthen strategies to promote a healthier food environment for the Asian people. Four virtual capacity building sessions (due to COVID-19 pandemic) for the INFORMAS food promotion module – television protocol were organized during 2020 with Dr. Sally Mackay and A/Prof. Dr. Bridget Kelly as prime faculty and ably supported by William Ng. Data collection and coding are underway as per the reporting date.

We are also proud to report that our INFORMAS collaboration in Malaysia has produced one PhD scholar, Dr Ng See Hoe (William) from the University of Wollongong, Australia. (subject to only minor revisions received on 19^th February 2021).