Community Level Intervention to Address Childhood Obesity in Monroe County, NY: Preliminary Findings

Background: The Greater Rochester Health Foundation's (GRHF) Childhood Healthy Weight Initiative is a comprehensive 10-year community intervention to increase the percentage of healthy weight children ages 2-10 in Monroe County, New York, by 10% by 2017. Methods: Over the past five years, the GRHF has supported a holistic approach of four distinct strategies: 1) increase physical activity and improve nutrition (in schools, child care settings and mini-grants), 2) engage the clinical community, 3) advance policy and practice solutions, and 4) execute a community communications campaign. Results: John Snow, Inc. utilized a reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance (RE-AIM) framework and found evidence indicating successful program adoption and implementation. Body mass index measurement indicated improvement at child care sites and lack of change in suburban schools. Findings indicate that to increase the prevalence of healthy weight children requires maintaining healthy weight for children at the acceptable range and reducing number of children who are overweight or obese. Investments in physical activity and learning curricula need to include broadening opportunities for activity beyond physical education class. Challenges with regard to nutrition change include difficulty in changing school food service related to budgetary, equipment, training and menu control issues. Conclusion: A sustainable, evidence-based framework for a community level intervention should link components and messages to maximize synergy and impact. The influence of the initiative is increasing in the community, as evidenced by the number of community events and mini-grants awarded, and parental awareness of the media campaign.