Obesity Interventions in the Community : Engaged and Participatory Approaches

Development of the Fit&Fab Exercise Intervention for Women With Obesity: A Community Advisory Board Informed Process

BACKGROUND

Women with higher body mass index report low rates of and face unique barriers to exercise. Increasing exercise participation can improve mental and physical health independent of weight loss; however, most exercise programs targeting this population focus predominately on losing weight. This paper aims to describe the development of Fit&Fab, a community-based exercise intervention focused on increasing exercise participation and enjoyment for women with obesity.

METHODS

In partnership with the YMCA, we recruited women ages 35-64 years (body mass index ≥ 30) to participate in 4 focus groups to understand exercise preferences. Formative work was used to identify theory constructs and associated intervention components. Women from the focus groups were recruited for a community advisory board that finalized the intervention design, recruitment, and evaluation plan.

RESULTS

Focus groups participants (N = 29) preferred to exercise without men and wanted a cohort-style class that included women of similar exercise levels and body types, incorporated social support, fun activities, and broke exercise into smaller bouts. They wanted a supportive instructor who was fit but understood weight-related challenges. The community advisory board and research team used focus group findings to inform design of the final intervention including group exercise classes, psychosocial support sessions, personalized training, exercise tracking, outcome monitoring, and rewards.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings emphasize the need to focus on exercise enjoyment and benefits other than losing weight to improve exercise participation among women with higher body mass index. In addition to having outcomes other than weight loss, exercise interventions with this population should also consider group composition, instructor, and class format.

Implementation evaluation of a collective impact initiative to promote adolescent health in Oklahoma County, USA

Background

The teenage birth rate in the USA has considerably decreased in recent decades; however, more innovative, collaborative approaches are needed to promote adolescent health and prevent teenage pregnancy at the community level. Despite literature on the promising results of the collective impact (CI) model for health promotion, there is limited literature on the model’s ability to reduce teenage pregnancies in a community. The Central Oklahoma Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaboration is applying the CI model to foster collaboration among multiple stakeholders with the goal of increasing community and organizational capacity to improve adolescent health outcomes. This paper reports the findings from the initiative’s implementation evaluation, which sought to understand whether the CI model improved collaboration among organizations and understand barriers and facilitators that affected program delivery.

Methods

Program implementers and evaluators jointly developed research questions to guide the intervention and evaluation design. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used to assess program components including the intervention characteristics, organization setting, community setting, facilitator characteristics, and the process of implementation. Primary sources of data included performance measures, meeting observations (n = 11), and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). The data was thematically analyzed using CFIR constructs, community capacity domains, and the five constructs of CI.

Results

Key findings include the need for shortened meeting times for meaningful engagement, opportunities for organizations to take on more active roles in the Collaboration, and enhanced community context expertise (i.e., those with lived experience) in all Collaboration initiatives. We identified additional elements to the core constructs of CI that are necessary for successful implementation: distinct role identification for partner organizations and incorporation of equity and inclusivity into collaboration processes and procedures.

Conclusions

Results from this implementation evaluation provide valuable insights into implementation fidelity, participant experience, and implementation reach of an innovative, systems-level program. Findings demonstrate the context and requirements needed to successfully implement this innovative program approach and CI overall. Additional core elements for CI are identified and contribute to the growing body of literature on successful CI initiatives.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12482-1.

Process evaluation of a whole-of-community systems approach to address childhood obesity in western Victoria, Australia

Background

SEA Change Portland is a systems-based approach implemented in Portland, Victoria that utilises local community resources to sustainably prevent and reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity. Action is implemented by community-led task teams with differing priority areas, and supported by a steering committee representative of four collaborating organisations. This study examines the SEA Change Portland process to identify significant events, enablers and barriers of its development and implementation to date as reported by key stakeholders involved in implementation during the first 12 months.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight steering group members and three community task team members. Data was collected utilising open ended interview questions to gather in-depth information regarding program implementation, and the individual attitudes, beliefs and experiences of key stakeholders.

Results

Data were analysed under three key themes: collective impact, systems thinking and asset based community development (ABCD). Participants gave perceptions of significant events; factors positively and negatively affecting the process; reasons for becoming involved in the process; perceived efficacy of task teams, principles of diversity and areas of concern. Themes emerged from participant responses allowing were categorisation of their responses into four key process stages: initial lead up; process development; establishing community ownership of the obesity system; and community action.

Conclusion

Collective impact was a crucial element in applying the systems thinking. Strong and equitable relationships between steering organisations and topic experts provided the initiative with a sustainable foundation, and ABCD promotes community ownership and future sustainability. Understanding the process of implementing a new whole-of-community systems approach to childhood obesity prevention such as SEA Change Portland has provided vital knowledge for other communities regarding enablers and barriers of this promising approach.

Engaging Coalitions in Community-Based Childhood Obesity Prevention Interventions: A Mixed Methods Assessment

BACKGROUND

Childhood obesity prevention interventions have engaged coalitions in study design, implementation, and/or evaluation to improve research outcomes; yet, no systematic reviews have been conducted on this topic. This mixed methods review aims to characterize the processes and dynamics of coalition engagement in community-based childhood obesity prevention interventions.

METHODS

Data Sources: Studies extracted from Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, and Web of Science; complementary original survey and interview data among researchers of included studies. Eligible Studies: Multisetting community-based obesity prevention interventions in high-income countries targeting children 0-12 years with anthropometric, behavioral, or environmental/policy outcomes. The Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Conceptual Model was used as an overarching framework.

RESULTS

Thirteen studies met inclusion criteria. Elements of CBPR were evident across all studies with community engagement in problem identification (n = 7), design/planning (n = 11), implementation (n = 12), evaluation (n = 4), dissemination (n = 2), and sustainability (n = 10) phases. Five studies reported favorable intervention effects on anthropometric (n = 4), behavioral (n = 1), and/or policy (n = 1) outcomes; descriptive associations suggested that these studies tended to engage community members in a greater number of research phases. Researchers involved in 7 of 13 included studies completed a survey and interview. Respondents recalled the importance of group facilitation, leadership, and shared understanding to multisector coalition work. Perceived coalition impacts included community capacity building and intervention sustainability.

CONCLUSIONS

This review contributes to a deeper understanding of intervention processes and dynamics within communities engaged in childhood obesity prevention. Future research should more rigorously assess and report on coalition involvement to assess the influence of coalitions on multiple outcomes, including child weight status.

Development and testing of a novel survey to assess Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion of childhood obesity prevention efforts

BACKGROUND

Involving groups of community stakeholders (e.g., steering committees) to lead community-wide health interventions appears to support multiple outcomes ranging from policy and systems change to individual biology. While numerous tools are available to measure stakeholder characteristics, many lack detail on reliability and validity, are not context specific, and may not be sensitive enough to capture change over time. This study describes the development and reliability of a novel survey to measure Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion via assessment of stakeholders' social networks, knowledge, and engagement about childhood obesity prevention.

METHODS

This study was completed in three phases. Phase 1 included conceptualization and online survey development through literature reviews and expert input. Phase 2 included a retrospective study with stakeholders from two completed whole-of-community interventions. Between May-October 2015, 21 stakeholders from the Shape Up Somerville and Romp & Chomp interventions recalled their social networks, knowledge, and engagement pre-post intervention. We also assessed one-week test-retest reliability of knowledge and engagement survey modules among Shape Up Somerville respondents. Phase 3 included survey modifications and a second prospective reliability assessment. Test-retest reliability was assessed in May 2016 among 13 stakeholders involved in ongoing interventions in Victoria, Australia.

RESULTS

In Phase 1, we developed a survey with 7, 20 and 50 items for the social networks, knowledge, and engagement survey modules, respectively. In the Phase 2 retrospective study, Shape Up Somerville and Romp & Chomp networks included 99 and 54 individuals. Pre-post Shape Up Somerville and Romp & Chomp mean knowledge scores increased by 3.5 points (95% CI: 0.35-6.72) and (- 0.42-7.42). Engagement scores did not change significantly (Shape Up Somerville: 1.1 points (- 0.55-2.73); Romp & Chomp: 0.7 points (- 0.43-1.73)). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for knowledge and engagement were 0.88 (0.67-0.97) and 0.97 (0.89-0.99). In Phase 3, the modified knowledge and engagement survey modules included 18 and 25 items, respectively. Knowledge and engagement ICCs were 0.84 (0.62-0.95) and 0.58 (0.23-0.86).

CONCLUSIONS

The survey measures upstream stakeholder properties-social networks, knowledge, and engagement-with good test-retest reliability. Future research related to Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion should focus on prospective change and survey validation for intervention effectiveness.

Participant and Public Involvement in Refining a Peer-Volunteering Active Aging Intervention: Project ACE (Active, Connected, Engaged)

Background

Evidence for the health benefits of a physically active lifestyle among older adults is strong, yet only a small proportion of older people meet physical activity recommendations. A synthesis of evidence identified "best bet" approaches, and this study sought guidance from end-user representatives and stakeholders to refine one of these, a peer-volunteering active aging intervention.

Methods

Focus groups with 28 older adults and four professional volunteer managers were conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 older volunteers. Framework analysis was used to gauge participants' views on the ACE intervention.

Results

Motives for engaging in community groups and activities were almost entirely social. Barriers to participation were lack of someone to attend with, lack of confidence, fear of exclusion or "cliquiness" in established groups, bad weather, transport issues, inaccessibility of activities, ambivalence, and older adults being "set in their ways". Motives for volunteering included "something to do," avoiding loneliness, the need to feel needed, enjoyment, and altruism. Challenges included negative events between volunteer and recipient of volunteering support, childcare commitments, and high volunteering workload.

Conclusion

Peer-volunteering approaches have great potential for promotion of active aging. The systematic multistakeholder approach adopted in this study led to important refinements of the original ACE intervention. The findings provide guidance for active aging community initiatives highlighting the importance of effective recruitment strategies and of tackling major barriers including lack of motivation, confidence, and readiness to change; transport issues; security concerns and cost; activity availability; and lack of social support.

Obesity Prevention: A Systematic Review of Setting-Based Interventions from Nordic Countries and the Netherlands

AIM

Effective evidence-based interventions have an important role in obesity prevention. Our aim was to present a qualitative synthesis of setting-based health promotion interventions on obesity, from Nordic countries and the Netherlands.

METHODS

A systematic review of the literature was completed for studies in the community, schools, and worksite, with BMI as an outcome. A descriptive analysis was completed for all full-text articles meeting the inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

Thirty-three articles were identified: 7 whole of community, 3 worksite, and 23 school-based interventions. The studies were largely quasiexperimental in design (21/33), with follow-up from 4 months to 8 years. The explicit use of theory was not featured in many of the studies (20/33). No consistent direction for BMI change could be identified in the whole of community interventions (2/7 positive, 2/7 negative, and 3/7 no effect) and no effect for worksite (3/3 no effect) or many of the school-based interventions (1/23 negative, 4/23 positive, 15/23 no effect, 1/23 BMI significant increase only for control group and 3/23 no data available).

CONCLUSIONS

There is a need to prioritise interventions with study designs of high quality, theory, and a participatory approach, for optimal implementation and evaluation of obesity prevention interventions.

Applying a mixed-methods evaluation to Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities

From 2008 to 2014, the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities (HKHC) national program funded 49 communities across the United States and Puerto Rico to implement healthy eating and active living policy, system, and environmental changes to support healthier communities for children and families, with special emphasis on reaching children at highest risk for obesity on the basis of race, ethnicity, income, or geographic location. Evaluators designed a mixed-methods evaluation to capture the complexity of the HKHC projects, understand implementation, and document perceived and actual impacts of these efforts. Eight complementary evaluation methods addressed 4 primary aims seeking to (1) coordinate data collection for the evaluation through the web-based project management system (HKHC Community Dashboard) and provide training and technical assistance for use of this system; (2) guide data collection and analysis through use of the Assessment and Evaluation Toolkit; (3) conduct a quantitative cross-site impact evaluation among a subset of community partnership sites; and (4) conduct a qualitative cross-site process and impact evaluation among all 49 community partnership sites. Evaluators identified successes and challenges in relation to the following methods: an online performance-monitoring HKHC Community Dashboard system, environmental audits, direct observations, individual and group interviews, partnership and community capacity surveys, group model building, photographs and videos, and secondary data sources (surveillance data and record review). Several themes emerged, including the value of systems approaches, the need for capacity building for evaluation, the value of focusing on upstream and downstream outcomes, and the importance of practical approaches for dissemination. The mixed-methods evaluation of HKHC advances evaluation science related to community-based efforts for addressing childhood obesity in complex community settings. The findings are likely to provide practice-relevant evidence for public health.