VIDEO: Creating ‘Policy Change Agents’ to Reduce Latino Childhood Obesity

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In its effort to reduce the Latino childhood obesity epidemic, Salud America!—through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)—funded 20 pilot research projects to build the field of Latino researchers and increase evidence to fight Latino childhood obesity.

The resulting 20 Salud America! pilot grantees have since tested innovative interventions and evaluations in Latino childhood nutrition, fitness and policy. The grants are “career-builders,” helping grantees leverage their data to get a foothold at their institutions, as well as embark on larger-scale work based off their successful pilot results.

The 20 grantees already have accrued more than $30 million in new funding, and more proposals are in review and development.

They also are sharing their individual research briefs (featuring preliminary research and policy implications) with local, regional and national policymakers.

Meanwhile, grantees also helped develop the Policy Contribution Spectra model, which visually illustrates how researchers can work in and between different levels in the policy development process—thus defining and measuring policy contribution. Grantees worked with a spectra expert to see how their work contributes to policy development, opening pilots’ eyes to innovative ways they can influence policy even when their pilot project expires.

Watch how far the grantees have become sort of “policy change agents”:

Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children, is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday. Salud America! has built a network—an online community—of nearly 2,000 researchers, academics, community leaders and other advocates dedicated to reversing Latino childhood obesity.