Posted by anderc8 on Thursday, October 4, 2018 in News, TIPs 2017.

Two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese and almost one in three children are overweight or obese by the time they enter kindergarten. The United States spends approximately $147 billion annually on health issues related to obesity, and its associated chronic disease consequences are the result of complex interactions between individual level factors.

The greatest contributor to the burgeoning problem of obesity is related to behavior. Addressing behavioral interventions in clinical and community settings is paramount to achieve effective prevention and intervention strategies to improve outcomes.

Despite the magnitude of the public health problem resulting from obesity, we lack effective approaches to counteract these trends in order to prevent and treat obesity. Closing these gaps will require innovative, trans-disciplinary approaches to reverse the medical, financial and social consequences of the obesity epidemic.

The Vandy Reach team is putting obesity science to work with a clear goal, steps for reaching this goal, and understanding the significance of this work.  

Grand Challenge: Building data-driven behavioral health interventions to improve individual and population health.

Begin with clinical settings integrating into the electronic health record:

1. Inform process to build structured data to eStar
2. Create and integrate a valid and reliable measurement
3. Build a reliable database (to utilize for population health)
4. Create behavioral cues to action for providers

Significance: This allows for an operationalized, patient-centered health model that incorporates behavioral data and could be applied to additional initiatives in both clinical and community settings.