The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) in collaboration with the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity (DNPA), the CDC Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) are undertaking a collaborative project to identify and assess policies or programs that have been implemented with apparent success in improving the eating habits and physical activity levels of children ages 3-17.
In each year of the two-year project, DASH, DNPA, and RWJ will each select an obesity prevention content area on which to focus efforts to identify potentially effective, innovative policies or programs. DASH has selected local wellness policies as it’s year-one content area. CDC staff will identify candidate policies that meet specific selection criteria including innovativeness, potential for impact, and feasibility, and an expert panel will identify those that show the greatest likelihood of effectiveness. Evaluability assessments (consisting of two to three day site visits), will be conducted on those policies selected by the expert panel to determine whether a rigorous evaluation study is feasible.
We are asking for your assistance in identifying districts in which schools are implementing local wellness policies this school year. We are accepting nominations of school districts that are implementing innovative local wellness policies. The nomination should include the state, school district, a name and contact information for a district contact, and a little information about the wellness policy.
Submit nominations to Seraphine Pitt Barnes (spe6@cdc.gov). The submission deadline is Tuesday, May 1, 2007.
If you would like additional information on this project please contact Seraphine Pitt Barnes (spe6@cdc.gov, 770-488-6115) or Leah Robin (ler7@cdc.gov, 770-488-6156).
Thanks for your help on this important project.
Seraphine
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Seraphine Pitt Barnes, Ph.D., MPH, CHES
CDC Foundation Fellow
Phone: 770.488.6115
E-mail: SPittBarnes@cdc.gov