"Targeting Obesity Prevention Interventions – Much More than Meets the Eye"
Abstract
Evidence points to the need to emphasize obesity efforts that are specifically designed to address disparities affecting racial/ethnic minority populations: disparately high prevalence, steeper upward prevalence trajectories in some cases, and findings that some extant interventions exacerbate rather than ameliorate disparities. Needed strategies fall under the general umbrella of “targeting”.
This talk is based on the premise that the evolution and understanding of targeting in obesity prevention research and practice lag behind other advances in the field. For example, many targeted programs focus on sociocultural issues in individually oriented programs without considering relevant physical, economic, and policy contexts. Many obesity prevention policies intended to address relevant contexts are designed as universal, or whole population, strategies without clear guidance on needed variations in implementation across and within states and localities. This may be in part due to reservations among policy makers about the need for targeting or reservations about the acceptability or overall effectiveness of targeting as well as perceived equity considerations.
This talk will use an equity lens to consider the importance of including targeted strategies in obesity prevention efforts. Dr. Kumanyika will define and illustrate key targeting concepts and issues applicable at different levels of an ecological model. She will differentiate those that act as facilitators vs deterrents for achieving equity and those that are obesity-specific (i.e., related to food and physical activity) vs. focused directly on social and economic contexts. She will share ideas about potential ways to advance the systematic use and assessment of targeting and its effects.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika is a Research Professor in the Department of Community Health & Prevention at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health and Professor Emerita of Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a BA in Psychology from Syracuse University, an MS in Social Work from Columbia University, a PhD in Human Nutrition from Cornell University, and an MPH from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Kumanyika’s research over more than three decades has addressed obesity and other food and diet-related aspects of chronic disease prevention, with a particular focus on eliminating disparities affecting Black children and adults. Her current efforts focus on frameworks and strategies to advance health equity in obesity efforts and more broadly. She is the Founding Chair of Council on Black Health (formerly the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network (AACORN) and Director of the Solutions to Diabetes in Black Americans Core within the NIH-funded P30 Center for Diabetes Translation and Research at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Kumanyika’s external service includes chairing the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academy of Medicine and the Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group of the World Health Organization.