The Shape Up Somerville community-based prevention program is a campaign initiated in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1998 and targeted at the issue of childhood obesity. After more than fifteen years of collective community effort, the campaign has resulted in measureable improvements in the area of public health, community engagement, and interaction between the stakeholders. According to the information from the interviews, the four key ingredients for early and sustained program success demonstrated in the report are multi-level nature of the intervention, the presence of a common agenda ensuring the alignment of efforts from multiple stakeholders and the mutually reinforcing effect, the existence of a robust communication network for the distribution of information, and the means of enforcing accountability to the participating organizations.
The perceived importance of the program can be attributed to the expected increase in the quality of life resulting from the change of lifestyle and environment associated with the improvement of public health. In addition, the overall social climate of the community is expected to improve due to the increased opportunities resulting from the infrastructural and administrative changes. Finally, the campaign is expected to bring new possibilities for local businesses and have an overall positive impact on the community’s economy.
The focus of the campaign on the younger population can be attributed to the fact that almost half of schoolchildren in the area were overweight or at risk of being overweight. In addition, such focus adds to the long-term effects of the program and increases its sustainability.
The program’s components align with several Healthy People 2020 objectives. For instance, the NWS-2, NSW-14, and NSW-15 are consistent with the initiative to provide the students with access to fruits and vegetables and encouragement to eat as much as they want in school cafeterias. The NWS-5, on the other hand, aligns with the introduction of several organic food markets (including a mobile one) in Somerville. Finally, the NWS-10.2 is directly related to the campaign’s goal as well as the target population group (ODPHP, n.d.).
PH Intervention Levels
System-Level Intervention
Active living by design is a city-planning initiative that aims at enhancing opportunities for walking and cycling in the area. The improvement is achieved primarily through the upgrade of the supportive infrastructure (biking and walking lanes) combined with the promotion of physical activity among the members. The activity is consistent with the definition of community organizing intervention where the community collectively develops the solutions intended to reach the collectively set goals (Virginia Community Health University, n.d.).
Community-Level Intervention
Growing healthy is intended to support the school-based garden development in combination with the promotion of fruit and vegetable consumption promotion in the school cafeteria. One of the PH interventions that explain the program activity is social marketing, where the promotion of healthy eating habits is achieved through commercial marketing principles and is intended to influence the values and knowledge of the target population.
Individual-Level Intervention
The White Physical Education Program is an overarching effort to improve weight status of the students. One of the program’s components provides BMI screening monitoring, and fitness testing of individual participants and thus can be defined as counseling since it relies on the interpersonal relationship with the community and enhances their self-care capacity (Chomitz, Arsenault, Garnett, & Hudson, 2013).
Conclusion
The scope of the identified levels of intervention contributed to the overall effectiveness of the program. The issue of obesity is not limited to individual decisions and can be traced to system-wide factors such as local infrastructure and policies. Therefore, the diverse nature of the program and the resulting mutual reinforcement greatly enhances the potential of the program to alleviate the existing problem and sustain the effect in the long run.
References
Chomitz, V. R., Arsenault, L., Garnett, B. R., & Hudson, D. (2013). Shape Up Somerville: Building and sustaining a healthy community.
ODPHP. (n.d.). Nutrition and weight status.
Virginia Community Health University. (n.d.). Wheel of public health interventions. Web.