Oral

Environmental and policy change strategies have been promoted as ways to create a population-level impact on healthy eating, physical activity, and obesity in a given community. Evaluation of such initiatives can be difficult given the intervention timeline, cross-sector approach, and broad target population. This session will discuss evaluation methods and results of several multi-year, multi-site initiatives focusing on policy and environmental change strategies to prevent childhood and adult obesity and reduce health disparities. Presentation topics will include Kaiser Permanente’s Community Health Initiative (CHI), the California Endowment’s Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) initiative, the California Endowment’s Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program (CCROPP), and the Let's Go! multi-sector childhood obesity prevention program of Greater Portland, Maine. Evaluation results, including changes in parental perception of neighborhood environments, parental support for select policy changes, community programs and environments, and local- and state-level policies, will be discussed.

Session Objectives: 1) Describe four major multi-site initiatives promoting policy and environmental change strategies for improving the food and physical activity environment; 2) Discuss evaluation design and methodological challenges related to the evaluation of community-based obesity-prevention initiatives; 3) Describe evaluation results and the impact of these programs on community environments, residents’ perceptions of the environment and support for policy change, local and state policies, and child and adult health outcomes.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)