A Pilot Study of the Efficacy and Program Cost-effectiveness of Prevention Plus for Childhood Obesity

In 2007 the Expert Committee published recommendations on the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity. These recommendations outlined four interventions intended for advancement based on the child's age, body mass index (BMI), and response to treatment. The initial stage, Prevention Plus, is to be implemented in the primary care setting and focuses on primary care providers monitoring growth monthly and delivering intervention messages that target dietary and leisure-time behaviors that most contribute to energy imbalance in children. Little research has evaluated the efficacy of these recommendations. Thus the primary goal of the proposed pilot study is to test the feasibility of the Prevention Plus stage for treating childhood overweight and obesity in a primary care setting. As the cost of interventions is a large barrier to the translation of evidence-based research into primary care settings, a second goal of the project is to evaluate program cost-effectiveness.