This early childhood obesity prevention study focuses on low-income and often minority families in a small city who have disproportionately high obesity rates. The interdisciplinary research team with expertise in childhood obesity, family development, health disparities, and community-based participatory research (CBPR) will empower family caregivers and community-based organizations (CBOs) to address obesity in the city of Troy, NY in Upstate, NY.
Specific aims i nclude developing a Community Advisory Board (CAB) comprised of family caregivers and CBOs (aim 1), conducting a mixed-methods community assessment to identify strengths and areas of need in families and their communities (aim 2), using this information to develop and implement a family-centered obesity intervention and integrating it into systems of care (aim 3), and evaluating the resulting intervention (aim 4) as well as the CBPR process (aim 5). This study's innovations are numerous and include: (a) A family-centered intervention framework that recognizes the ecological realities of families'lives;(b) An inter-professional intervention framework in which obesity prevention with families is integrated within existing community-based programs and organizations;and (c) an evaluation plan that uses a rigorous within-subject, repeated-measures design with a non-equivalent control group (exposed to a conventional obesity prevention) to test the effectiveness of the family-centered intervention and the CBPR process. Empirical rigor and practical relevance are balanced in this study by using a CBPR approach to design the intervention and conventional gold-standard scientific measures of obesity and obesity-related variables, as well as existing measures of empowerment, to evaluate its effectiveness. The overarching goal is to build community capacity for childhood obesity prevention and determine the effectiveness of a family-centered obesity prevention program developed using CBPR. In addition, this project will derive tools and best practices to guide future CBPR childhood obesity initiatives in low-income communities challenged by health disparities.
Obesity among children has reached epidemic levels and is a top public health priority. Childhood obesity is intertwined with unhealthy diet and physical inactivity and intervening at a young age is key for establishing healthy habits. Childhood obesity is linked with diseases previously limited to adulthood (e.g., type II diabetes) and persistent obesity is a major cause of death and disability among adults.
