Educating health care professionals in advocacy for childhood obesity prevention in their communities: integrating public health and primary care in the Be Our Voice project

We assessed the perceived need for and the effectiveness of the Be Our Voice advocacy training. In this training, health care professionals learned public health strategies to advocate for environmental systems changes to prevent childhood obesity in their communities. We assessed 13 trainings acros...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) 2012-08, Vol.102 (8), p.e37-e43
Main Authors: McPherson, Marianne E, Mirkin, Rachelle, Heatherley, Priya Nair, Homer, Charles J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advocacy
Child
Child Advocacy
Children & youth
Community Health Services - organization & administration
Curricula
Delivery of Health Care, Integrated
Education
Female
Health Personnel - education
Humans
Male
Obesity
Obesity - prevention & control
Online Research and Practice
Pilot Projects
Prevention
Primary care
Primary Health Care
Public health
United States
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Summary:We assessed the perceived need for and the effectiveness of the Be Our Voice advocacy training. In this training, health care professionals learned public health strategies to advocate for environmental systems changes to prevent childhood obesity in their communities. We assessed 13 trainings across 8 pilot sites. We conducted 2 rounds of surveys with participants-pre-training (n=287, 84% response rate) and immediately post-training (n=254, 75% response rate)-and semi-structured interviews with participants after training (n=25). We uncovered essential and promising elements of the training. Primary care providers found the Be Our Voice training effective at building their comfort with and motivation for engaging in public health advocacy; they reported achieving learning objectives, and they had positive responses to the training overall and to specific sessions. They articulated the need for the training and plans for advocacy in their communities. The Be Our Voice training provides an opportunity to integrate primary care providers into public health, community-based advocacy. It may be a model for future educational offerings for health care professionals in graduate and postgraduate training and in practice.
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2012.300833