More children than ever are challenged to achieve and maintain normal weight. Many of these children are in need of treatment but unable to afford childhood weight management. Local programs are expensive and insufficient supply. A 6-month waitlist exists for children to enter the only multidisciplinary childhood weight management clinical program in Colorado, The GoodLIFE Clinics at The Children’s Hospital. The obesity treatment programs at The Children’s Hospital currently have capacity to reach less than 1% of the estimated 40,000 severely obese children (BMI >99th percentile for age) in Colorado. So, capacity to treat even the most severely obese children, representing only the tip of the iceberg of childhood obesity, is sorely lacking.
Denver Public Health and Center for Research in Implementation Science and Prevention have recently received a grant to pilot the Community Outreach Obesity Prevention Trial (CO-OPT). The purpose of is to investigate the effectiveness of a community health worker-based program as an adjunct to clinical services for childhood obesity management. This study will test the effectiveness of a model obesity treatment program to be delivered by community health workers to families of overweight or obese children. This family-centered program will be delivered in the community and homes of enrolled families for 6 months. The community health worker will be using several new technologies (e.g., text messaging and patient relationship manager [PRM]) as an adjunct when working with an obese child and his/her family. The results of this project will inform future obesity interventions for children in Colorado and nationwide.
Posted 4/2012