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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Bethann Witcher Cottrell, PhD, Health Committee, Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, 890 Venetta Pl NW, Atlanta, GA 30318, 404-792-2334, drbwitcher@earthlink.net and Christopher S. Holliday, MPH, Health Assessment and Promotion, DeKalb County Board of Health, 445 Winn Way, Decatur, GA 30030.

The number of obese youth throughout the United States has led healthcare professionals and policy makers to rank it as a critical public health threat. Nine million children over six years of age in the United States are obese. Among its major findings the Institute of Medicines Childhood Obesity Prevention Study (2004) stated that childhood obesity is a serious nationwide health problem requiring urgent attention and a population-based prevention approach and that individual efforts and societal changes are needed concurrently through the involvement of multiple sector and stakeholders. Youth spend time in their faith-communities where lifelong values are instilled. Members of more than 50 faith communities in the metro Atlanta area participated in a 2005-2006 study supported by the Healthcare Georgia Foundation and sponsored by the Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta in partnership with the Regional Council of Churches of Metropolitan Atlanta to discover the role of the faith-community in contributing to or deterring the onset and treatment of childhood obesity. Furthermore, visioning data was collected on how the faith-community can work with families, healthcare agencies and the educational system to affect individual and societal changes. The World Café and Appreciative Inquiry were combined into a single methodological approach to collect data. The processes of data collection using The World Café and Appreciative Inquiry will be shared with the participants. Results of the data collection will be presented. Recommended strategies for creating an environment of health and wholeness for youth within the faith community will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: