Abstract
Problem:
Obesity prevalence rates are highest in Hispanic and African-American youth and in low income families. Multidisciplinary weight management programs that effectively produce long-term meaningful weight loss outcomes require intense engagement and retention efforts with minority inner-city adolescents. These adolescents face many financial, familial, social and logistical barriers which typically manifest as low engagement and high attrition rates.
Goals and objectives:
To expand the reach of youth who can access coordinated school and after school wellness programming. Objectives: 1) Foster adoption of B'N Fit POWER Healthy Target Behaviors as School Wellness Programming; 2) Develop a data management system to integrate data from each key stakeholder with which to generate an annual School Wellness Report Card; and 3) Increase access to wellness services for the entire middle school students and their families.
Methodology:
Our proposal is grounded in evidence based practices to promote acquisition of seven healthy lifestyle behaviors -increase daily lunch and breakfast, fruit, vegetable, and water consumption, limiting sugary beverages, unhealthy snacks and fast food, increase physical activity, optimize sleep, and engage in positive youth development. With oversight from the School Wellness Council the program will engage more students and families through coordination and integration of school-wide youth and family wellness activities. The Montefiore School Health Program (MSHP) will provide clinical support and complete wellness assessments in the School-Based Health Center (SBHC), while the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC) will provide afterschool healthy lifestyle programming. We will: 1) develop, test, and refine Program Activities Implementation List (PAIL) Toolkits for each key stakeholder; 2) develop a data management system that enables key stakeholder data integration of currently collected data into a central web-based database with which to generate an Annual School Wellness Report Card; 3) will expand access to BMI screening and healthy lifestyle counseling for all students who attend the SBHC and expand B'N Fit afterschool programming to all students enrolled in the MMCC afterschool program.
Coordination:
Activities and evaluation will be coordinated between the school, its Wellness Council, on-site school health services and after school programming to leverage existing school structures and strengths
Evaluation:
We use the Wellness Cascade to evaluate the successive steps of program implementation by tracking rates of students; 1) Screened for overweight or obesity; 2) Diagnosed with overweight and obesity; 3) Enrolled in B'N Fit clinical, afterschool and school-based wellness services; 4) Consistently engaged throughout the school year; and 5) Achieving successful outcomes, defined as 20% improvement in the attainment of 7 Target Behaviors and assess their impact on BMI. We will track school absences and academic performance. Changes in these measures from program initiation to program completion will be compared.