Overview

Childhood overweight and obesity affects 1 in 4 children ages 2-5, with the monthly rate of BMI change in children ages 6-11 nearly doubling during the pandemic. Family stress, food insecurity, poverty, the built environment, and other Social Determinants of Health contribute to health disparities in overweight, obesity and associated comorbidities such as diabetes and asthma. Primary care teams lack resources to appropriately address healthy weight management at all stages of a child’s life within the context of family and community. Clinical quality measures are needed that incorporate the multifactorial construct of the problem and are uniformly adopted across the health center landscape. There are inadequate models of care that incorporate the family, community and primary care team into healthy weight management that is evidence-based yet adaptable to local needs.

In Year 4 of the Strengthening Public Health Systems and Services through National Partnerships to Improve and Protect the Nation's Health, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) continues work in five action areas to improve evidence-based prevention and intervention of pediatric obesity in health centers, communities and families. NACHC’s emphasis in Year Four is bringing together a healing, hopeful family-centered model that recognizes the impact of the pandemic, staff and family burden, SDOH and pediatric mental health needs while still championing proven models of care to address overweight and obesity. In that spirit, Come to the Table is the theme around which we are fashioning our work in this project year. 💡

To implement this proposal, NACHC will leverage its infrastructure, strategic partnerships, data-driven approach, and unique reach to the 1,400 health center organizations that provide primary care to 30 million medically underserved and vulnerable patients in over 14,000 delivery sites through out the country.