$6M CDC Award Aims to Prevent Childhood Obesity
The research grant is the largest SDSU has ever received from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
San Diego State University is one of four universities nationwide to be awarded a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to combat childhood obesity. SDSU will receive more than $6 million over four years to support the Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project.
SDSU’s Institute for Behavioral and Community Health will lead the effort in conjunction with the Imperial County Public Health Department and Clinicas de Salud del Pueblo Inc. The study will evaluate a multisector, multilevel intervention to address childhood obesity in Imperial County, which has the highest rate of childhood obesity of any county in California (39 percent vs. 28 percent statewide).
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Funded through the Affordable Care Act of the CDC, the project will build on current research and community efforts in the region to identify effective health care and community strategies to support children’s healthy eating and active living.
“Childhood obesity is the most prevalent chronic health condition among youth, and Latino children are at particularly high risk because of a number of factors,” said Guadalupe X. “Suchi” Ayala, professor in SDSU’s Graduate School of Public Health and the grant’s lead investigator.
The award is the largest research grant SDSU has ever received from the CDC.
Leader in Latino health research
“SDSU has a strong reputation in research related to childhood obesity and Latino health,” said Marilyn Newhoff, dean of SDSU’s College of Health and Human Services.
“This grant will allow us to take the body of research thathas been conducted by those in the health promotion division of the Graduate School of Public Health and apply it in a comprehensive way to a population that is very much in need.”
Approximately 1,500 children ages 2 through 10 will participate in the study that will take a multifaceted approach, including interventions in restaurants, grocery stores, schools and parks and recreation and daycare centers.
For example, the Institute for Behavioral and Community Health lab conducts research on how to work with families, grocery stores and restaurants to promote healthy eating. They will use the lessons learned when working with schools and daycare centers.
“We’ve found that although schools have banned sodas and other sugar-based beverages, they are not providing enough healthy alternative options to their students,” Ayala said. “Many of these schools don’t have functioning drinking fountains, so we plan to introduce water jets that have had great results in other parts of the U.S.”
Other intervention strategies could include:
- Increasing the availability of healthy menu options for children in restaurants
- Enhancing physical activity opportunities in the community
- Promoting and creating more community gardens
Applying findings nationwide
“Our goal is to take research where we have seen results and implement a number of those results to see if as a whole they have an impact on the community,” Ayala said. “We expect that they will and then this approach could be translated and applied to other communities nationwide.”
At the end of the project in September 2015, the CDC will disseminate the findings and provide recommendations for successful strategies to prevent obesity among underserved children throughout the United States.
For more information about the program, visit the Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project website.
