Preventing Obesity in the Latino Community Across the Life Cycle: The Blue Island Story

Current literature lacks the power to set a clear direction for policy based obesity prevention interventions for Latino populations. However, a need exists for population prevention strategies to tackle the obesity epidemic in Latino communities. This presentation identifies and selects effective strategies for community level interventions based on the work done under a national prevention program and presents guiding principles for structuring essential partnerships and relationship building.

Blue Island, Illinois is a 4.5 square mile city with a population of 23,706 residents that is located southwest of Chicago, IL. Blue Island is primarily comprised of minorities; 50% of its residents are of Hispanic descent and over 20% are African American. Blue Island is a poor community. The median household income falls well below national, state and county averages. Unemployment sits at 14.5%, up from 8% in 2000. Spanish is a prominent language in the community, and is spoken at home by about 39% of the population in Blue Island. Over 25% of the 25 year and older population in Blue Island had not completed a 12th grade education.

In 2011, the Blue Island Community Health Coalition was founded to provide assistance and oversight in the development of policies, guidelines, programs and media campaigns critical to the promotion of healthy lifestyle choices. This presentation will describe a sustainable prevention program overseen by the Coalition designed to implement policy, systems and environmental changes to prevent or reduce the spread of obesity and related chronic conditions in an underserved Illinois Latino community.