Health Plans Take On Obesity to Build Healthier Communities

As former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona stated on this blog, obesity is a complex challenge requiring a coordinated, multi-faceted and collaborative approach. To that end, the Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP) released a Jan. 11 report highlighting the strategies the nation’s community-based health plans are using to engage their communities, members and providers to combat childhood obesity.

The report, “Pediatric Obesity: Addressing a National Challenge at a Local Level,” documents the innovative steps ACHP members are taking to address this epidemic in their communities. Reducing pediatric obesity is a challenge that depends on partnerships – with children themselves, but also with their parents, schools, health care providers, and even local businesses and governments to promote different behaviors and healthier lifestyles.  In short, improving the health of children involves changing behaviors not only of individual children, but also of the community in which they live.

Among the initiatives highlighted in the report:

• University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Health Plan’s HEALTHY Armstrong program, which partners with local schools, doctors and others to work with children to improve nutrition and increase physical activity, has shown a 15 percent decrease in consumption of high-calorie, low-nutrition foods.
• HealthPartners in Minneapolis engages the entire family in making behavior changes in its Families in it Together program.
• Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin’s Kids Café aims to increase access to healthier foods and combat pediatric obesity by partnering with the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition and the Second Harvest Food Bank to provide healthy food to low-income children.
• CareOregon’s Smart Choices Healthy Lives Media Campaign, a partnership between two local TV networks to broadcast information about making healthy lifestyle changes, looks to increase physical activity among children in Oregon and increase overall community awareness and engagement through broadcast and print support.

These multi-faceted approaches demonstrate how health plans can and should play a prominent role as a local integrator of resources and a steward of community health to combat a growing epidemic. According to an article in Health Affairs (March 2010), the direct costs of childhood obesity in 2008 totaled more than $14 billion; if left uncontrolled, some estimates place a $344 billion price tag on all obesity-related health care by 2018. Even more troubling than the cost, however, is the fact that one of every three children in the U.S. today is considered clinically overweight or obese. Addressing these complex issues will require that effective, engaging preventive efforts and chronic disease management approaches are in place.

ACHP members are rising to the challenge. As community-based, nonprofit health plans, they have a key role in supporting their communities through education, support and health care. Changing behaviors related to diet and fitness is difficult for everyone, but is critical to improving the health of children for the rest of their lives. This report highlights some of the ways health plans are engaging communities where children spend their time—in classrooms and cafeterias, in their homes, in the doctor’s office and throughout their neighborhoods. Looking to the future, several ACHP plans are conducting research to examine the causes and effects of pediatric obesity, as well as the effectiveness of different treatments and programs in slowing the trend. National advances in measurement and evaluation can help these efforts, though further funding from public and private sources will be necessary to implement lasting, systemic change.  The STOP Obesity Alliance’s success in drawing attention to this challenge through tireless commitment and hard work represents the kind of national, collaborative effort that others need to emulate.

At a local level, committed leadership will play an essential role in carrying out engagement strategies to achieve lasting change. By engaging entire communities, ACHP members are taking a stand against pediatric obesity.  We recognize that our children are our future and their health is in our hands.

Patricia Smith is president and CEO at the Alliance of Community Health Plans in Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.achp.org.