Data on obesity prevalence, diets and food environments is lacking in Wales compared to other parts of the UK. Good data can help us better understand problems like obesity so we can design and target effective interventions that tackle these problems. Data can also help build a case for why action from government, industry and the third sector could be needed in this space.

With this project, we took a proactive approach: systematically mapping data gaps within the healthy life mission in Wales rather than waiting for data gaps to emerge.

We will use this data gap mapping process to identify what data, if it existed, could help Nesta and other stakeholders tackle obesity in Wales more effectively; where this data exists and where it doesn’t; and how the absence of certain data is holding back our efforts.

Our process began with identifying the ideal datasets, which must be available at the right level of detail and regularity, to enable the mission and other stakeholders working in this area to track their main goal in obesity interventions.

We then moved onto a period of desk research and stakeholder interviews to identify and map the existing data gaps by investigating what data is currently available and the causes of any gaps.

The learnings from this project will enable us to highlight longer-term changes that would improve the data infrastructure for all groups working with data around obesity and its drivers.

There is also potential for this project to inform future work for Nesta in this area by generating ideas for novel data sets.

Data is essential to all of our missions and this project is a first step towards creating a method for identifying and prioritising data gaps - data gap mapping.