Workshops on Community Perspectives on Obesity Prevention in Children and Youth

Goal of the Workshops: Gain insight from community-level obesity prevention programs on the challenges of and promising approaches for developing, evaluating, and acting on policy and programmatic interventions. The particular challenges of communities that experience health disparities will be featured.

 Overview

The focus of these workshops is on hearing from individuals who are implementing community- and policy-based interventions on childhood obesity prevention, particularly in communities that experience heath inequities. As an initial step in assuring that community voices are heard, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has engaged a variety of community leaders to elaborate the challenges and promising approaches for obesity prevention.

The first workshop was held in June 2008.  The workshop was intended to inform the IOM on the needs for evidence by community public health leaders when assessing effectiveness of childhood obesity programs. IOM staff also conducted personal interviews with both community leaders in charge of starting obesity prevention programs and those who evaluate the effectiveness of programs and policies.   A workshop summary is available free online at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12479

The second workshop will be held May 6, 2009 at the National Academies of Sciences in Washington D.C. The workshop is open to the public. For more information and to register, click here.