The Hands-On Health Project

From: Inter-Faith Food Shuttle

Need:
Thousands of children in Wake County do not receive the food that allows them to thrive, rather filling their bellies with more readily available and poorer nutrient quality food. 2006 NC-NPASS data for Wake County shows that 23% of low-income children are overweight.

Purpose:
The purpose of the Hands-On Health project is to stem and turn back the increase of overweight and malnourished children in Wake County by developing, testing, executing and evaluating a comprehensive and collaborative neighborhood-based environmental and educational program to change eating, exercising and nutrition-lifestyle choices of children in four low-income communities.

How:

  1. Community research and stakeholder inclusion: determine interest and needs of community members, integrate community members in assessment and planning process, and assess healthy and non-healthy living habits, barriers, and interests. Current partners include, for example, the Raleigh Housing Authority, YMCA, WakeMed, the City of Raleigh, NC Cooperative Extension, and the RHA Inter-Community Council.
  2. Program development using all stakeholder input: refine overall program through community-based focus groups and advisory board feedback and identify program sites.
  3. Test pilot program in two Raleigh Housing Authority communities.
  4. Assess and expand program to two additional communities.
  5. Evaluate program.

Outcomes:

  1. Measured changes in food intake behavior and related characteristics - 70% of participants will increase servings of fruits and vegetable; 80% of participants will improve nutrition knowledge; 50% will improve food resource management skills, etc..
  2. Increase in physical activity rates among 40% of participants.
  3. Improved social emotional indicators of community impact.
  4. Improved educational indicators: 10% of children will improve at least one letter grade in one course; 10% of children will reduce school absences; and 10% of children will reduce in-school suspension rates.
  5. Improved access to and availability of healthy foods: 50% of participants will report increased access and10% increase in delivery of health foods to target neighborhoods.

Cost / Term: $388,020 over three years.

Start - End Date: January 2009 - March 2012