Community Based Approaches to Reducing Childhood Obesity in Providence

描述(申请人提供)：儿童肥胖是一个严重的公共卫生问题，具有显著的种族、民族和社会经济差异，由社会、经济、文化、政治和特定社区因素的复杂相互作用造成。缩小这一差距并制定有效的干预措施，侧重于社区的具体需要和优先事项，需要深入了解这些因素之间的复杂相互作用。因此，迫切需要开展基于社区的参与性研究(CBPR)，以制定有效、协作的预防和干预研究战略，以减少儿童肥胖相关的健康差距。CBPR已被证明是一种有效的肥胖预防过程；但还需要更多的研究。通过这项提议，一个包括来自布朗大学、大普罗维登斯基督教青年会的研究人员、CBPR和促进方面的专家、由不同、有影响力和有代表性的社区利益相关者和居民组成的社区咨询委员会的优秀团队将在一个协作、共同学习的过程中共同努力，制定一项研究议程，以减少普罗维登斯RI儿童肥胖相关的健康差距。建议的研究的具体目的是：1)确定社区的具体需求和利益。如何通过持续的外展和社区参与活动解决普罗维登斯儿童肥胖问题以及潜在的行为和环境决定因素，以鼓励家长、儿童、主要利益攸关方和组织积极参与(学术-社区)合作规划和评估过程。2)制定和实施一系列以社区为基础的会议/演讲/论坛，以分享评估结果，并让社区成员、利益攸关方和组织参与对数据的“概念图”分析和解释，以指导制定CBPR干预议程。3)：制定与社区组织的正式伙伴关系协定和合作的CBPR干预计划和研究议程，以减少儿童肥胖症的差距。该项目具有重要意义，因为：a)它侧重于减少儿童肥胖，这是一个严重的公共卫生问题；b)目标受众是低收入、有较高肥胖风险和相关健康差距的种族/少数民族家庭；c)重点社区是普罗维登斯，一个核心城市， 该中心的目标是：(A)通过与儿童肥胖症相关的显著差异的研究；(D)与学术和社区PI一起利用CBPR方法，确定社区特有的儿童肥胖症的行为、环境和社会决定因素，并为应对这些挑战创建协作研究议程；(E)通过培训社区成员进行形成性研究和干预设计方法，同时促进社区成员对研究人员的对等培训，在社区建立社会资本；(F)建立长期、可持续的学术和社区合作伙伴关系，以减少与肥胖症相关的健康差距，创造健康公平。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood obesity is a serious public health problem with significant racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities caused by a complex interplay of social, economic, cultural, political and neighborhood-specific factors. Closing this disparities gap and developing interventions that are effective and focused on the community's specific needs and priorities requires an in-depth understanding of the complex interplay of these factors. Thus, there is a compelling need to conduct Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to develop effective, collaborative prevention and intervention research strategies to reduce childhood obesity- related health disparities. CBPR has been shown to be an effective process for obesity prevention efforts; but more research is needed. Through this proposal, a stellar team including investigators from Brown University, the Greater Providence YMCA, experts in CBPR and facilitation, a Community Advisory Board of diverse, influential and representative community stakeholders and residents will work together in a collaborative, co- learning process to develop a research agenda for reducing childhood obesity-related health disparities in Providence RI. The Specific Aims of the proposed research are to: 1) Identify the community's specific needs and interests re. how to address childhood obesity and underlying behavioral and environmental determinants in Providence through ongoing outreach and community engagement activities to encourage the active involvement of parents, children, key stakeholders, and organizations in a collaborative (academic-community) planning and assessment process. 2) Develop and implement a series of community-based meetings/presentations/forums to share the assessment findings and engage community members, stakeholders and organizations in a 'Concept Mapping' analysis and interpretation of the data to guide the development of a CBPR intervention agenda. 3): Develop a formal partnership agreement with community-based organizations and a collaborative CBPR intervention plan and research agenda for reducing childhood obesity disparities. This project is significant because: a) it is focused on reducing childhood obesity, a serious public health problem; b) the target audience is low income, racial/ethnic minority families who are at higher risk of obesity and related health disparities; c). the focal community is Providence, a core city, with significant childhood obesity-related disparities; d) it is utilizing a CBPR approach with bot an academic and community PI to identify community-specific behavioral, environmental and social determinants of childhood obesity and to create a collaborative research agenda to address these challenges; e) it builds social capital in the community by training community members in formative research and intervention design methodology while facilitating reciprocal training for researchers by community members; and f) it creates a long-term, sustainable, academic-community partnership for reducing obesity-related health disparities and creating health equity.