Testing an Adaptive Implementation Strategy to Optimize Delivery of Obesity Prevention Practices in Early Care and Education Settings

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PROJECT SUMMARY Consuming a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy weight provide significant protection against cancer and cancer-related mortality. Early interventions are needed to decrease the risk of developing cancer later in life. Early care and education (ECE) is a promising setting for cancer prevention. “Together, We Inspire Smart Eating” (WISE) is an intervention that improves children's diets in ECE. WISE includes 4 key evidence-based practices (EBPs): (1) hands-on exposures to fruits and vegetables, (2) role modeling by educators, (3) positive feeding practices, and (4) a mascot associated with fruits and vegetables. Standard implementation approaches to WISE result in suboptimal implementation of WISE EBPs. Additional implementation strategies are needed to increase adoption and fidelity to EBPs. To date, most studies have employed an “all-or-nothing” approach, comparing multifaceted strategies to control groups without implementation support. Thus, there is an urgent need for optimized strategies that tailor implementation support intensity to the unique challenges and limited resources of the ECE context. The overall objectives of this application are to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an adaptive implementation approach to improve adoption of the EBPs of WISE while also examining implementation mechanisms. Our central hypothesis is that the addition of high-intensity strategies at sites that do not respond to low-intensity strategies will improve implementation and health outcomes. Specific Aim 1. Determine the effectiveness of an adaptive implementation strategy that tailors the intensity of implementation support versus a low-intensity strategy. Using an enhanced non-responder trial, we will compare the effect of continuing low-intensity strategies vs. augmenting with high-intensity strategies. We hypothesize that sites receiving high-intensity strategies will outperform sites continuing the low- intensity strategies on the primary outcome of intervention fidelity and on secondary child health outcomes. Specific Aim 2. Examine moderators and mediators of implementation outcomes in a mixed- methods design. We will test organizational readiness and teacher experience as moderators of response to the implementation strategies. We will test educators' perceptions of barriers, local implementation climate, and implementation leadership as mediators of the effect of the strategies on implementation outcomes. Qualitative data will explore other potential moderators and mediators not measured quantitatively. Specific Aim 3. Assess the incremental cost-effectiveness of the adaptive implementation strategy. In this aim, we will estimate the cost per unit of fidelity associated with the adaptive implementation strategy. Results will also determine the incremental cost-effectiveness of applying the adaptive strategy compared to continuing low-intensity strategies for improving BMI and other child health outcomes.