Joint responsibility in health as the basis for an inter-institutional action plan: Addressing overweight and obesity in a Costa Rican population

Abstract

The objective of this study is to describe the process of creating an inter-institutional action plan to address overweight and obesity in the population of mothers from the urban counties of Alajuelita and Escazu in Costa Rica. This research has a qualitative approach, is a descriptive transversal study, and uses a research-action methodology, which takes as participants the institutional actors of both counties, during a six-month time frame. The main results is the creation of an action plan for in each of the two counties. Process, product and result indicators are also proposed for each of the 4 work areas that were part of the action plan, It is concluded that joint responsibility in health is of vital importance for the creation of actions that seek to improve the health of the population, especially in communities in which there is significant political will from institutional actor, but there are few resources.