Maine-Harvard Prevention Research
Center
Other M-HPRC
Projects
The M-HPRC provides evaluation and intervention technical assistance
and capacity building to community groups and other organizations
(especially Healthy Maine Partnerships) and in collaboration with
the Maine Bureau of Health and Maine Dept. of Education for specific
M-HPRC research-related efforts.
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In coordination with its community partners,
the M-HPRC designs and conducts Maine-based applied research
projects.
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 Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative
In partnership with the
Maine Harvard Prevention Research Center and the Maine Chapter of
the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Maine Center for Public
Health (MCPH) has established a
Maine Youth Overweight Collaborative to improve care and
outcomes for overweight and obese youth. The MCPH will bring together clinical experts,
primary
care practices, and community partners to develop local expertise
and shared goals among clinical practice teams in order to improve
management of and decrease youth overweight within the state. Based
on the need to address the challenge of youth overweight, and the
success of the Collaborative model, for the first time we are
applying this model to the problem of youth overweight in Maine.
Using the framework of the
Chronic Care Model (CCM), the Collaborative aims to
achieve its goals through better-informed and activated patients
along with better prepared practice teams. Efforts will be made to
engage practices caring for high numbers of uninsured and/or
underserved children, including those serving high numbers of
MaineCare enrollees. Process of care measures will include
effectiveness of measuring BMI within the practice and conducting
assessments of obesity co-morbidities. An important focus will be
the success of the practice team in patient self-management goal
setting, and addressing behavioral outcomes by the provider teams. A
Senior Advisory Community with specific Collaborative roles and responsibilities was formed over the summer to
help develop and refine the clinical and patient support
Keep Me Healthy Tool Kit
. The Steering Committee is also
responsible to develop the
“Key Areas for Change” and Core
Measures for the Collaborative.
Starting
Young in Maine
The Maine Center for Public Health [MCPH] and Maine Harvard
Prevention Research Center [MHPRC] are very pleased to have received
a grant award from Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation to further
expand a pilot initiative called “Starting Young in Maine”. This
initiative has been pilot tested in 2006-07 with the generous help
of Emily Rines—Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition and the York
County Head Start/Early Head Start program.
Many
children are developing patterns within their families that may put
them at risk for excess weight in later childhood and adolescence.
Childcare providers can potentially impact
the epidemic by promoting gradual, feasible changes in these
patterns among children and families. The potential of childcare
providers as drivers and supporters of that process has broad
empirical and theoretical basis.
Why “Starting Young”? - Early childhood is an ideal time to focus on
change!
-
Prevention programs prior to age six are essential to
altering trends in adolescence & adulthood
-
Young families are often still forming or replicating
childrearing practices
-
Children’s behavior patterns start during this time period
-
Early education setting is the workplace for many who may be
working on their own nutrition and physical activity issues and
modeling those behaviors to children.
Objectives for expansion of “Starting Young”
Building on lessons learned from the pilot, we have engaged
eight Healthy Maine Partnerships [HMP’s] to
help us further develop and refine this program within 32 Head Start
sites/classrooms. Starting Young is also an excellent
opportunity for HMP’s and Head Start to link up with pediatricians
and family practices participating in the Maine Youth Overweight
Collaborative [another initiative of the MCPH] who are extremely
motivated around the issue of youth overweight.
Goals for "Starting Young" include:
-
Develop assessment tools for use by Head Start Centers with
their HMP to determine opportunities to enhance existing work,
increase awareness and for improvement of physical activity and
nutrition policies and programs for staff, children and families.
-
Working closely with the I Am Moving—I Am Learning [IM—IL]
initiative already universally adopted by Head Start in Maine,
develop and distribute evidence-based strategies and appropriate
resources/tools that Head Start Centers can use to address
assessment findings.
-
Develop an evaluation template to be used by HMP’s and Head
Start Centers for collecting feedback and / or data.
-
Provide training and technical assistance to Healthy Maine
Partnerships on implementation and analysis of the assessment tool
and appropriate strategies.
-
To identify areas for collaboration with local pediatricians and
other clinicians to support Head Start efforts to improve physical
activity and nutrition.
[The potential exists to add
physicians and interested community members to Health Advisory
Committees at each site.]
Timeline
Implementation in September 2007, training in early
November, assessments & surveys complete by end November,
initial results presented to Head Start in January 2008,
post evaluation April/May and
Final Report July 2008.
For
more information contact Joan Orr, CHES at
jorr@mcph.org
phone (207) 629-9272 Ext. 211.
Advocacy
An objective of the Maine-Harvard Prevention
Research Center is to support and advocate for policies that will
promote increased physical activity, improved nutrition and
decreased overweight and obesity. Policies supported by M-HPRC are
informed by current research and best practice.
State and Local Issues
Federal Issues
Congress increases focus on obesity epidemic
Federal School Foods Fact Sheet 2007
School Funding Myths
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