Network to strengthen statistical modeling to project future population outcomes of interventions and policies for preventing childhood obesity

To guide and advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, the Foundation needs tools and models to forecast the impact of its investments in policy-environmental interventions. The Childhood Obesity Modeling Network (COMNet), a collaborative project, will create a network that connects a consortium of leading childhood obesity modelers. COMNet will offer the following benefits: (1) strengthen and integrate the existing statistical modeling techniques and measures used to evaluate trends in childhood obesity; (2) assure comparability in on-going modeling efforts and results; and (3) accelerate the pace of learning and application of intervention efforts. This project builds on the statistical modeling conducted by Claire Wang, PhD, and Steven Gortmaker, PhD, at the Harvard School of Public Health. Their model, which estimated the "energy gap" responsible for changes in weight distribution among children and teens in the U.S. between 1988 and 2002, will help to guide the follow-up, RWJF-funded modeling to predict the potential impact of varied policy-environmental interventions to help close this gap. Grant deliverables include several peer-reviewed articles and technical reports presenting modeling results and methodological/measurement recommendations to guide ongoing modeling efforts. During the process, the grant will support two in-person meetings per year, four teleconferences and interim workgroup activities to stimulate and support collaborative efforts. This project will be co-funded by the National Institutes of Health's Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (NIH-OBSSR).

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $50,000.00

Awarded on: 7/27/2007

Time frame: 8/1/2007 - 12/14/2009

Grant Number: 61468