Project Summary
Hispanic children from low-income families are at high risk for obesity, with weight issues beginning early in a child’s life. Despite this, Hispanic families are often not meaningfully engaged in identifying and solving the issues that contribute to the high prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity. Moreover, there is a need to intervene early in a child’s life. By the time the child is 5, behavior patterns for the child and parenting patterns for parents or caregivers are well established.
To address these issues, Children’s Hospital Colorado and its partners established the Familias Saludables partnership, which aims to develop culturally relevant interventions to prevent these health disparities among low-income, Hispanic children from birth to age 5. The Familias Saludables partnership has successfully engaged Hispanic parents/caregivers of young children, clinicians, researchers, and community partners to deepen the understanding of the challenges faced by parents of children ages birth to 5 with respect to establishing and maintaining a healthy weight, and to prioritize areas for further research to inform efforts going forward.
Through the PCORI Pipeline to Proposal Tier III Award, the Familias Saludables partnership will further strengthen the engagement across stakeholders and will build capacity and commitment to conduct patient-centered comparative effectiveness research in the coming months. Our long-term plan is to apply learnings to design culturally appropriate interventions that will ultimately advance the health of Hispanic children.