Healthcare Domain of the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative: Engaging partners from across the healthcare industry to participate in a broad-based community partnership

This session will present the work of the Healthcare Domain of the San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative (Initiative), a unique public/private partnership that has engaged community partners in multiple sectors to work together to impact childhood obesity. Healthcare is one of seven domains identified by the Initiative to have the most influence on developing environments that support healthy choices and behavior change. With assistance from the Initiative, leaders from across the healthcare industry have voluntarily come forward to work together in new and different ways to implement strategies to prevent and treat childhood obesity through environmental and policy change. Partners include healthcare providers, hospital systems, health plans, public health, community clinics, mental health providers and others.

The Healthcare Domain initially sought the input of local pediatricians to determine current practices related to obesity prevention and treatment and barriers to implementation of effective strategies. The domain also formed an advisory panel comprised of physicians from multiple specialties (pediatrics, family practice, pediatric endocrinology, etc.). With this input, domain workgroup members prioritized their approach to focus on practice improvement, awareness of available resources, and advocacy to enact policy change. Resulting projects include development of a practical toolkit to be distributed via academic detailing designed to assure consistent, culturally-appropriate messaging throughout San Diego County; trainings for healthcare providers to encourage advocacy and community engagement; development of a centralized resource/referral network in collaboration with 2-1-1 San Diego and the San Diego Diabetes Coalition; collaborating with other domains/sectors including schools and government on numerous projects.