Healthy Kids & Families: Overcoming Social, Environmental and Family Barriers to Childhood Obesity Prevention

University of Massachusetts, Worcester

Status: Completed

Conditions: Obesity

Treatments: Behavioral: Healthy Lifestyle; Behavioral: Positive Parenting

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03028233

U48DP005031 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

H00005048

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study will test the impact of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families overcome barriers to childhood obesity prevention. Barriers include social, environmental, and family issues.

This intervention will be compared to a control condition consisting of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families improve positive parenting skills.

Full description

The study will test the impact of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families overcome barriers to childhood obesity prevention. Barriers include social, environmental, and family issues.

This intervention will be compared to a control condition consisting of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families improve positive parenting skills.

The intervention uses multiple delivery modalities to maintain novelty and prevent attrition/burden. These include home visits, telephone contacts, print (literacy sensitive newsletters), social media (Facebook), and community events. Parents and children will complete scheduled assessments at baseline, 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-month follow-up.

The Specific Aims are:

Aim 1: To determine the effectiveness of the intervention compared to the control condition on child physical activity, healthy eating, BMI and utilization of built environment resources.

Aim 2: To determine the effectiveness of the intervention compared to the control condition on parent physical activity, healthy eating, BMI.

Aim 3: To examine the potential scalability of the intervention guided by the RE-AIM (Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance) model.

Enrollment: 244 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 4+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Eligible individuals for the research study are parents/guardians and their K-6th grade children attending one of 9 schools in the greater Worcester area. Parents and their children are recruited as parent-child dyads.

Exclusion criteria

• Has an inability or unwillingness to give informed consent or assent
• Is a prisoner

Exclusion (child only)

• The child has been told by a doctor that they cannot walk or eat fruits and vegetables.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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244 participants in 2 patient groups

Healthy Lifestyles

Experimental group

Description:

The study will test the impact of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families overcome barriers to childhood obesity prevention. Barriers include social, environmental, and family issues.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Healthy Lifestyle

Positive Parenting

Active Comparator group

Description:

The control condition consists of a community health worker (CHW)-delivered intervention aimed at helping families improve positive parenting skills.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Positive Parenting