PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET (Organisation)

EPIDEMIOLOGY AND BIOSTATISTICSMedicalSCHOOL OF POPULATION HEALTHFaculty of Medical & Health SciencesBuilding 7304 th Floor, Tamaki CampusAuckland, New ZealandTelephone 64 9 373 7599Facsimile 64 9 373 7503www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nzThe University of AucklandPrivate Bag 92019Auckland, New ZealandPARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET (Organisation)Project title:Name of researchers:To:Understanding stakeholder views on visual food guidesJennifer Utter (Principal Investigator)Judith Morley-John (Student Researcher)School of Population HealthUniversity of AucklandPotential participating organisationsThis research is being undertaken as part of a dissertation project for a Master in Public Health (MPH) degree.The purpose of this research is to get feedback on visual food guides from key stakeholders in the health andeducation sectors. Your professional organization is being invited to participate because of members’experience in the promotion of healthier eating.Visual food guides are education tools which guide consumers to healthier eating. The National HeartFoundation of New Zealand (the Heart Foundation) has secured charitable trust funding to develop a new visualfood guide for healthier eating for adults which will be based on the New Zealand Cardiovascular Guidelines.Baseline research, including consultation with key stakeholders, focus groups, a literature review and anenvironmental scan, has been completed.The Heart Foundation has instigated a Working Group whose skills include priority groups, primary care, graphicdesign, behaviour change, social marketing and communication. They are providing expertise and advice ondesign, development, implementation and dissemination of the guide. The aim of the guide is to provide avisual tool that conveys simple, big picture messages about a healthy, balanced cardio-protective diet. Theprimary target will be prevention of heart disease in adults. It will be designed to ensure it is relevant forMaori, Pacific South Asian and Pakeha. It is expected users will be predominantly health promoters, healthprofessionals (especially primary care), educators and foodservices.This research project seeks to pretest the draft visual food guides with health workers and nutrition educators.It involves the use of an anonymous online questionnaire (non-encrypted) which will take approximately 20minutes to complete. The questionnaire will ask about participants’ previous experiences with visual foodguides; their opinion on several Heart Foundation draft designs for a new visual food guide; and their need fortools that could potentially support implementation of a food guide.Participation in the survey is voluntary and your members may choose not to participate. If they decide toparticipate in this research, they have the right to quit the survey at any time prior to the point of submittingthe questionnaire. Participating individuals will be invited to enter a prize draw for one of four prizes for $50vouchers (iTunes or Amazon) and also to request to receive the summary findings. For this to occur, they will

need to supply their email addresses (but not their names). Survey participation and responses will not belinked to email addresses.The data will be held in a secure server with password-protection and will only be available to the studentresearcher and the Heart Foundation supervisor. At the conclusion of the research, the data will be transferredto the principal researcher for the remainder of the required six year period and then it will be destroyed.Findings from this survey will be reported anonymously in the MPH report and may also be reported in a peerreviewedpublication or conference presentation. They will be made available to the Heart FoundationWorking Group for the development of a new visual food guide, which will then be pretested with consumers.A summary of the research findings will be forwarded to participating organisations and individuals.Feedback from end-users is an important part of the development process to ensure that the final food guidemeets their needs. Such a project may be of interest to a wider audience as it may have relevance todevelopment of other educational resources and healthy eating messages.If your organisation is willing to support this research, please complete the attached Consent Form and return itto Judith. We will then contact you to discuss how best to contact individual participants within yourorganisation. The invitation email for your members to participate in the survey will include ParticipantInformation and an URL link to the online survey. Organisations may be requested to send reminder emails totheir members on two occasions.If you have any questions about the research, please contact the student researcher, Principal Investigator orHead of Department, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Population Health.Judith Morley-John (Student Researcher)Email: jmor111@aucklanduni.ac.nzJennifer Utter (Principal Investigator)School of Population HealthUniversity of AucklandTelephone: 09 373-7599 extn. 89022Email: j.utter@auckland.ac.nzProfessor Robert ScraggHead of Department, Epidemiology and BiostatisticsSchool of Population HealthUniversity of AucklandTelephone: 09 373-7599 extn. 86336Email: r.scragg@auckland.ac.nzFor any concerns regarding ethical issues you may contact the Chair, The University of Auckland Human Participants EthicsCommittee, The University of Auckland, Research Office, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142. Telephone 09 373-7599 extn.87830/83761. Email: humanethics@auckland.ac.nz.APPROVED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND HUMAN PARTICIPANTS ETHICS COMMITTEE ON 4 TH OCTOBER 2012 for (3)years, Reference number 8535