Project Summary
Low-income Hispanic children in Colorado are at high risk for being overweight or obesity, with 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, most obesity prevention efforts focus on children ages 5 and older. It is well documented that changing behaviors later in a child’s life is much more difficult, especially if the child is already overweight or obese. By the time a child is 5, behavior patterns for the child and parenting patterns for the parents or caregivers are well established. To address this issue, Children’s Hospital Colorado and its partners established the Familias Saludables project, which aims to develop culturally relevant interventions to prevent these health disparities among low-income, Hispanic children ages birth to 5. Children’s Hospital Colorado serves as the lead organization and has engaged clinicians, researchers, community partners, Hispanic parents/caregivers, and patient families to deepen the understanding of the challenges faced by low-income Hispanic parents of children ages birth to 5 surrounding establishing and maintaining healthy weight in their children. Through the PCORI Tier II program, our partners will strengthen the Familias Saludables project and partnerships, and will build capacity to engage in patient-centered comparative effectiveness research in the coming years. Our long-term plan is to apply these learnings to design culturally appropriate interventions that can be tested for effectiveness in the healthcare setting.