Using Community Readiness Assessment to Inform Environmental Intervention Development in the Children's Healthy Living (CHL) Program in Remote Underserved Minority Populations of the Pacific

Abstract

The prevalence of early childhood obesity among Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and Alaska Natives is disproportionately high compared to other US population groups. Sustainable, multi‐strategy, community‐based approaches, rather than individually targeted approaches, are increasingly recognized as effective strategies to obesity prevention. Previous studies, however, have not examined community readiness (CR) as an important facet to obesity prevention interventions. We present results of CR assessments completed in the Children's Healthy Living (CHL) Program that will inform development and implementation of a community‐based intervention to modify the food and physical activity environment to prevent child obesity in 5 jurisdictions: Alaska (AK), American Samoa (AS), Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam (GM) and Hawaii (HI). A survey assessing 6 dimensions of CR was administered to key informants in 4 target communities per jurisdiction. Possible dimension CR scores range from 1 (No Awareness) to 9 (High Level of Community Ownership). Jurisdiction scores ranged from 3 – 4 in AK (n = 23) and CNMI (n = 22), 4 – 5 in HI (n = 24), 5 – 6 in GM (n = 34), and 6 – 7 in AS (n = 39). Results will be used to tailor CHL's community‐based environmental intervention to match each community's level of readiness.Grant Funding Source: Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant no. 2011–68001‐30335 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agricultural Science Enhancement Coordinated Agricultural Program