Pamella C. Darby, MPH, RD¹, Roy Grant¹, Alan Shapiro, MD², Basma Faris, MS, RD², and Irwin Redlener, MD³. (1) The Children's Health Fund, 317 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10021, 212-535-9400, pdarby@chfund.org, (2) South Bronx Health Center for Children and Families, 871 Prospect Avenue, Bronx, NY 10459, (3) National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, 722 West 168th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10032

With ever rising rates of pediatric overweight, The Children’s Health Fund, in its Starting Right program, focuses on early identification, intervention, and prevention of childhood overweight and its associated morbidities. Clinically, the program is refining screening protocols for implementation in primary care with inner city Hispanic and African American pediatric patients. As high-risk patients are identified, they are referred for individual and family nutrition counseling and medical follow-up. Increasing activity levels of the patients and their family members is one intervention explored by Starting Right. Due to hospital risk management policy, the program could not incorporate any type of physical activity, including walking, into its program. The Children’s Health Fund turned to linkages within the community for its activity portion of their overweight prevention program. By partnering with the local Police Athletic League (PAL), Starting Right was able to fund participation in after school and evening activities for the children and adolescents. This partnership benefited both the PAL and the Starting Right program as the PAL filled many of its vacant slots, and the children who were seeking physical activity opportunities found a local program that provided it. Needs assessment showed preference for group activities such as dancing and walking groups to individual activities. Exploration into other linkages between local city programs and the PAL were explored. Comparisons between those children who chose to enroll in the PAL activities and those who did not will be made. The indicators we will look at include: blood pressure, cholesterol levels, glucose tolerance and body composition.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to

• Identify strategies for referring to local community resources.
• Understand the process of linking clinic-based programs to community agencies.
• Identify benefits of increasing activity levels on overall health.

Keywords: Obesity, Physicians

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.