Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #117688

Jeanette V. Flores Flores, MPA, 57th Assembly District Grassroots Nutrition and Physical Activity Campaign, Team Leader, Kaiser Permanente, Educational Outreach Department, Baldwin Park Medical Center, 1011 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, CA 91706, (626)851-6365, jeanette.v.flores@kp.org, Rosa Soto, Regional Director, Grassroots Nutrition and Physical Activity Campaign, California Center for Public Health Advocacy, P.O. Box 2277, La Puente, CA 91746, and Loel Solomon, PhD, Director, Community Health Initiatives and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente, Community Benefit, One Kaiser Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612.

In 2000, the Center for Public Health Advocacy and Kaiser Permanente developed a partnership to improve community health and youth leadership through bringing awareness to the rising rates of childhood obesity in the City of Baldwin Park, California.

Through a grassroots advocacy model aimed at mobilizing youth leaders, policymakers and the community, this partnership effected local policy change to improve the physical activity and nutrition environment. Key activities included: 1) organizing a team of community leaders, teen advocates and health professionals; 2) involving youth in health events and in assessing their school and community food environments; and 3) meeting regularly with legislators and local policymakers to share local data. This effort shares in Kaiser Permanente's Community Health Initiative, an effort to link an evidence-based and prevention-oriented approach to medicine with community activism and proven public health interventions.

At the end of four years, several important results were achieved: improved availability of local data on childhood obesity and its prevention; adoption of a city youth obesity prevention policy; youth testimony before California legislative committees; and an environmental approach to improving childhood obesity rates in partnership with the city, the school district, the local health department and the non-profit sector. As evidence of success, these efforts have resulted in a four-year sustainability plan through funding by The California Endowment, Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) Initiative whose overarching goal is to reduce disparities in obesity and diabetes by improving food and physical activity environments for children.

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