Topics for Study

The Childhood Obesity team has as a priority the reduction of the obesity rate within children between the ages of 3 and 18. To that end the study of changes in local policies and environments as they relate to physical activity and food consumption in children is very important to the team.

To provide a clear focus for applicants to New Connections: Increasing Diverse Perspectives to RWJF Programming, each programming team was asked to develop specific research projects or questions that would help inform their strategies and grant making. These specific questions are described below. Applicants are asked to submit proposals for one of the topics described below.

Please note that not all teams have research questions at this time and the detail provided below by each team varies according to each team's needs and interests. Finally, some of the research questions will be more suitable for Junior Investigators and other questions will be more suitable for Senior Consultants. Thus, applicants should consider the following guidelines.

Senior Consultants
The CFP for Senior Consultants will be released in Spring 2009.

Junior Investigators
Questions that would be more suitable for secondary analysis should be answered by a junior investigator. When responding to this solicitation, Junior Investigators must indicate how they will incorporate the secondary datasets when responding to research questions. Junior Investigators should provide a description of the data and rationale for its appropriateness given the research question. Junior Investigators are responsible for identifying and acquiring the dataset.

Junior Investigators must respond to one of the following questions:

Analyze one of the following areas using the data from the California Health Interview Survey from 2003, 2005 and 2007, which permit repeat cross-sectional analysis of change at the city, county, and school district level. The CHIS data set is a unique state-level data set in its level of detail and the large sample sizes that permit detailed analyses by age, race/ethnicity, and gender. Further information is available from the CHIS website at chis.ucla.edu

1. Proposals may focus on analysis of changes related to the implementation of The California Endowment's Healthy Eating Active Communities (HEAC) program in various communities across California, as described at healthyeatingactivecommunities.org/ Proposals dealing with this program should be coordinated with the local evaluations occurring in the HEAC sites.
   
   
2. Proposals may also focus on the analysis of change before and after the implementation of Kaiser Permanente's Health Eating Active Living Community Health Initiatives as described at info.kp.org/communitybenefit/our_work_3.html
   
   
3. Other local policy changes in California are also of interest. It is highly desirable to coordinate this effort with the California Department of Public Health's Coordinating Office of Obesity Prevention at ww2.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Pages/COPP.aspx