Mountain West Prevention Research Center

SUMMARY The Mountain West Prevention Research Center (MW-PRC) will address the increasing inequities in childhood obesity in lower income rural and micropolitan (<50,000 residents) communities in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. These communities experience a confluence of poverty, economic instability, high obesity rates, food insecurity, and a lack of access to healthcare and existing evidence-based interventions. There is a critical research and translational gap in the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based, family healthy weight programs to address obesity in these communities. To date, our team has developed successful strategies to address three key dissemination and implementation barriers to eliminating obesity- related inequities in lower income rural and micropolitan communities. These include the development of the Building Healthy Families (BHF) Online Training Resources and Program Package and Action Learning Collaborative that addressed known barriers related to local implementation capacity, delivery by diverse organizations, and access to relevant program materials. The goal of the MW-PRC is to eliminate income- related inequities in childhood obesity by addressing a fourth key barrier—challenges in identifying, enrolling, and retaining families in evidence-based family healthy weight programs. We will focus on increasing access to and the reach of BHF, the only CDC-recognized family healthy weight program designed in, and by, rural and micropolitan communities, using population health management (PHM) and community-based participatory research methods. Our Center will utilize a Community Advisory Board representing state and local health departments, community health centers, and other community-based organizations and aims to build local academic and community capacity to conduct applied prevention research to resolve income and geographic inequities in childhood obesity. The Core Research Project will include a type 3 hybrid effectiveness implementation study using a sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial design to determine the impact of integrating PHM via text messaging and direct enrollment in BHF for lower income families with a child (6-12 years) with obesity identified through community health center electronic health record data. Furthermore, we will participate in the PRC Network to share translational resources for disseminating and implementing family healthy weight programs to benefit low-income populations. The MW- PRC will produce generalizable translational tools to move family healthy weight interventions into action in rural and micropolitan communities and eliminate obesity-related inequities.