News from Cambridge Health Alliance
January 12, 2010
Institute for Community Health Receives Grant to
Combat Obesity Among African-American Youth
Cambridge, MA…Virginia Chomitz, PhD, a senior scientist
at the Institute for Community Health (ICH), will lead a team of
academic and community partners that has been awarded a Harvard
Catalyst Pilot Grant to develop a targeted intervention to reduce
obesity among African-American youth in Cambridge. ICH is based
at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard-affiliated public healthcare
system.
The study builds on a decade of collaborative obesity prevention
efforts initiated by Dr. Chomitz and the Healthy Children Task Force
which resulted in a national award-winning foundation of sustainable
policy-level and environmentally focused interventions aimed at
Cambridge schoolchildren. While body mass index (BMI) declined among
all children ages 5-14 during this time, black and Hispanic children
continued to be twice as likely to be overweight or obese. Childhood
obesity has been tied to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma,
sleep apnea, and depression.
"Currently, there exists little evidence on effective interventions
to reduce BMI disparities among communities of color," said
Dr. Chomitz, who also serves as a lecturer on medicine at Harvard
Medical School.
Dr. Chomitz, the principal investigator, will work with researchers
from the Cambridge Public Health Department, Cambridge Public Schools,
Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, Harvard Medical School, and
Harvard School of Public Health. The team will employ community-based
participatory research methodologies, including longitudinal data
analysis, in-depth interviews with children and their families,
and interactive community-based workshops, to design comprehensive
interventions to overcome the barriers to active living and healthy
eating.
"Partners from the African-American community in Cambridge
are very excited about the opportunity to explore the social, cultural,
economic, and environmental causes of obesity among black youth,"
added Ardeene Goodridge, Area IV Neighborhood Coordinator and community
investigator on the project.
"Working with the community to help understand the factors
leading to BMI disparities in black children will greatly enhance
obesity research and policy," said co-investigator Josefine
Wendel, MS, RD, from the Cambridge Public Health Department. "That
insight can help identify successful interventions and potentially
impact great disparities in morbidity and mortality from diabetes
and cardiovascular disease."
Harvard Catalyst | The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science
Center awarded grants to 65 out of more than 360 projects submitted
by investigators from across Harvard and its affiliated healthcare
centers. With these one-year, $50,000 grants, Harvard Catalyst aims
to stimulate clinical and translational research by bringing together
researchers from different institutions and/or disciplines to jointly
address specific scientific questions, generate the preliminary
data needed to apply for long-term funding, and focus scientific
resources and expertise on high-risk, high-impact areas of research.
For more information, visit http://catalyst.harvard.edu.
The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is a unique collaboration
of three Massachusetts health care systems to improve the health
of Cambridge, Somerville, and surrounding cities and towns. Founding
members are Cambridge Health Alliance, the Mount Auburn Hospital,
and the Massachusetts General Hospital of Partners HealthCare. ICH
stimulates the creation of innovative programs and health policies
through a community-based approach that promotes long-term healthy
lifestyles. For more information, visit www.icommunityhealth.org.
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