Community-based participatory approaches to achieving desired changes in health and well-being of Tribal members strives to be culturally appropriate and offers opportunity for self determination in achieving effective and sustainable changes in health outcomes of a particular Tribal community. The Northern Plains has a unique historical landscape that has etched an environment for the several Tribal Nations to experience a major assault on the health and vitality of their People to resurgence and a reclaiming of their historical right to have adequate health care which accommodates the overall health and well-being of the community. The epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States has become an epidemic on many American Indian Reservations (Caballero et al. 2003). A key component of prevention is education. A vehicle to give voice to the 17 Tribes in this region was the creation of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board (AATCHB). With full Tribal leadership support AATCHB disseminates current and timely information to all the Tribes on their identified and priority health issues and concerns. /V^TCHB is established to provide the American Indian people of the region with a formal representative Board as a means of communicating and participation with the Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service and other health agencies and organizations on health matters. The collaboration and long term partnership between the University of South Dakota School of Medicine, Sanford Research/USD, Sanford Health Disparities Research, and the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen's Health Board, will provide the potential to achieving the desired changes in health and well-being of members of the Tribal communities. The target population for this outreach program will be parents and their children of the designated Tribes. These participating Tribes will be informed of the project through the direction of Donald Warne, MD, MPH, Executive Director of the AATCHB, who will oversee the site selection process and provide guidance to the researchers and Tribal community throughout the grant activities. Based on the Community Child Health Needs Assessments, the interventions will be designed to increase knowledge of childhood obesity and evidence-based preventive practices at the individual and family, community and health and social system providers levels. These education processes will be through community engagement and a multi-level knowledge information dissemination process.
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