Funded Projects

Team KiPOW! Cornell: Health in Action

Project Year

2023

City & State

New York, New York

Program Name

CATCH Resident

Topic

Overweight & Obesity (LHI)

Program Description

Childhood obesity is a growing concern in the US, affecting approximately 19.7% of children. Unfortunately, children in lower socioeconomic communities are particularly vulnerable for a multitude of reasons. In East Harlem, for example, there is one supermarket for every 17 bodegas, forcing many families to shop primarily at bodegas where there are fewer healthy food options. Obesity affects minority communities disproportionately, and its prevalence is highest amongst black (24.8%) and Hispanic (26.2%) youth. The USPSTF recommends at least 26 hours of intensive behavioral interventions by healthcare-trained individuals to produce a meaningful change in weight, which is not attainable in the traditional clinical model. While many state and national school policies have been instituted like The National School Lunch Act to try and support healthy lifestyle in children, the goals of these policies are rarely met. Data show that children are not eating the healthier foods provided at schools. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are the foods most often discarded in the cafeteria, despite strong data linking nutrient quality with cognitive function, cardiometabolic health, and psychological well-being. Further, required physical activity minutes are seldom achieved in schools due to competing academic priorities and lack of time and staff. Lastly, health education goals are rarely met due to a lack of qualified teachers, academic time, and a standardized, up-to-date curriculum. Unfortunately, these disparities between policy and reality are universal, but are more pronounced in schools serving lower-income and minority communities, the very communities who need these policies the most. Team KiPOW! is an academic-community partnership between local hospitals, health professional schools, and underserved elementary/middle schools that helps implement school wellness policy so that children can reach their full physical, emotional, and academic potential through improving nutrition and physical activity. Our chapter, Team KiPOW! Cornell, is a partnership between New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College, and P.S. 083 Luis Munoz Rivera Elementary School in East Harlem. Projected enrollment will be 80 elementary students between ages 8 and 11. Our primary goal is to extend the medical home to schools by increasing weekly minutes of physical activity, implementing an interactive health education curriculum, and encouraging healthy snack consumption through contact time with trusted health mentors who model positive diet and activity behaviors. We hope to increase physical activity outside of school, consumption of fruits/vegetables, and consumption of healthy beverages. A secondary goal is to decrease or stabilize blood pressure and BMI and increase skin carotenoid levels (a proxy of fruit/vegetable intake) in students. We will implement the program starting in Fall 2023. We aim to also start data collection for research purposes in Fall 2023, but if delayed we will aim for Spring 2024. We will initiate a modified version of KiPOW! in the form of an after-school program at P.S. 083, as this is a significantly underutilized time period for our population and also eliminates the need to compete for precious academic time in school. Each week, trained mentors (residents, medical/PA students, undergraduates) will go to the school and spend 75 minutes during afterschool hours with students to deliver the health lesson for that day, share a healthy snack together, and engage in active play. For the research component, we will have pre-, mid- and post-intervention data collection days. We anticipate that the Team KiPOW! Cornell after-school program can be feasibly implemented in New York City. We believe it can have similar positive outcomes as compared to prior KiPOW! during-school programs. Our primary goal is to successfully implement the program. Either in the first or second year, we plan to begin collecting data to compare to the KiPOW Orange County study.

Project Goal

Extend the medical home into underserved schools so that all students can feasibly achieve positive lifestyle change.

Project Objective 1

To successfully enroll at least 80 students in our after-school behavioral intervention, with at least 75% attendance rate for the weekly sessions.

Project Objective 2

To ensure that participating students receive at least 26 hours of contact time with health mentors over the school year, 600 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, and 600 minutes of health education.

Project Objective 3

To enroll 75% of the students participating in our after-school program into our research study measuring qualitative and quantitative program impact by Spring 2024, which will include: a) BMI, blood pressure, and fitness performance (pacer test) after 10 and 20 weeks of the intervention b) Skin carotenoid levels (as a marker of fruit and vegetable consumption) after 10 and 20 weeks of intervention b) A validated survey assessing behavior change outside of school before and after the intervention including increased physical activity outside of school, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and consumption of healthy beverages

AAP District

District II

Institutional Name

New York Presbyterian- Weill Cornell

Contact 1

Julia Buirkle