The Healthy Communities Study

Abstract

Communities across the U.S. are implementing programs and policies designed to address the epidemic of childhood obesity. These programs vary widely in their approaches, including the intensity level, duration, funding, target population, and implementation techniques. However, no previous studies have examined these variations and determined how such aspects of community programs and policies are related to childhood obesity outcomes. The Healthy Communities Study is an observational study that is assessing the associations between characteristics of community programs and policies and BMI, nutrition, and physical activity in children. The Healthy Communities Study was funded in 2010, field data collection and medical record abstraction will be completed in 2015, and data cleaning and analyses will be completed by mid-year 2016. One-hundred and thirty communities (defined as a high school catchment area) and up to 81 children in kindergarten through eighth grade and their parents have been recruited from public elementary and middle schools across the country. The study is examining quantitative and qualitative information obtained from community-based initiatives; measures of community characteristics (e.g., school environment); and child and parent measures, including children's physical activity levels and dietary practices and children's and parent's BMI. The Healthy Communities Study employs a complex study design that includes a diverse sample of communities across the country and combines current/cross-sectional and retrospective data (abstracted from children's medical records). This paper describes the rationale for the Healthy Communities Study, the study aims and logic model, and a brief overview of the study design.

Community‐level obesity prevention is not associated with dieting behaviours and weight dissatisfaction in children: The Healthy Communities Study

“…The NIH funded the HCS to examine how characteristics of CPPs were associated with childhood obesity-related factors 14,15 . This observational study was of mixed design, collecting cross-sectional data on diet and physical activity from children between 2013 and 2015, and retrospective data from the prior 10 years on CPPs and child BMI.…”

Objectives of community policies and programs associated with more healthful dietary intakes among children: findings from the Healthy Communities Study

“…The design of the HCS is described in detail elsewhere (15)(16)(17)(18). In brief, it was an observational study of a diverse sample of 130 US communities by sociodemographic characteristics, geographic region, and types of CPPs being implemented.…”

“…CPPs not reporting COCOMO strategies were coded as 'not applicable', and those with insufficient information about their strategies were coded as 'other'. Information on each CPP was used to calculate an intensity score (CPP-Int) based on population reach, duration and behaviour change strategy and a count score (CPP-Count) for each type of CPP, standardized from 0 to 1 to enable comparisons across communities (15,16). This paper examines the specific objectives of CPPs in the communities we studied including target nutrition behaviours, and objectives of any reported COCOMO strategies.…”

“…fat and total calories). Strengths of this study include the diverse sample of communities and children, multiple methods to document CPP characteristics and multiple levels of information from communities, schools, families and children, which enabled us to account for other factors influencing dietary intakes (15).…”

Recruitment outcomes, challenges and lessons learned: the Healthy Communities Study

“…The Healthy Communities Study (HCS) was designed to assess the relationship between characteristics of community programs and policies (CPPs) and child physical activity, dietary behaviors, and body mass index (BMI) 6 .…”