Community Based Approaches to Reducing Childhood Obesity in Providence

儿童肥胖症是一个严重的公共卫生问题，由社会，经济，文化，政治和社区特定因素的复杂相互作用引起的种族，民族和社会经济差异。要消除这种不平等差距，制定有效的干预措施，并将重点放在社区的具体需求和优先事项上，就必须深入了解这些因素之间复杂的相互作用。因此，迫切需要开展基于社区的预防性研究（CBPR），以制定有效的、合作的预防和干预研究策略，以减少儿童肥胖相关的健康差距。CBPR已被证明是预防肥胖的有效方法;但还需要更多的研究。通过这项提案，一个包括来自布朗大学，大普罗维登斯基督教青年会，CBPR和促进专家，社区咨询委员会的不同，有影响力和代表性的社区利益相关者和居民的调查人员组成的恒星团队将在合作，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与儿童肥胖相关的健康差距。建议研究的具体目标是：1）确定社区的具体需求和兴趣。如何解决儿童肥胖症和潜在的行为和环境决定因素在普罗维登斯通过正在进行的推广和社区参与活动，以鼓励家长，儿童，主要利益相关者的积极参与，并在协作（学术社区）规划和评估过程中的组织。 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、利益相关者和组织参与“概念图”分析和数据解释，以指导CBPR干预议程的制定。 （3）：与社区组织制定正式的合作伙伴关系协议，并制定协作性CBPR干预计划和研究议程，以减少儿童肥胖差异。 该项目意义重大，因为：a）它的重点是减少儿童肥胖症，这是一个严重的公共卫生问题; B）目标受众是低收入、少数种族/族裔家庭，他们有较高的肥胖风险和相关的健康差距; c）。焦点社区是普罗维登斯，一个核心城市， d）它正在利用CBPR方法，与学术和社区PI一起确定儿童肥胖的社区特定行为，环境和社会决定因素，并创建一个合作研究议程来应对这些挑战; e）、它通过在形成性研究和干预设计方法方面培训社区成员，在社区建立社会资本，同时促进互惠互利。社区成员对研究人员进行培训; f）建立长期、可持续的学术-社区伙伴关系，以减少与肥胖有关的健康差距，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.