Adapting the Parent-Training Program, SafecareŽ, to Target Childhood Obesity Risk Factors

Childhood obesity is as a major public health concern in the United States, with nearly 1 in 3 children considered overweight or obese. Unfortunately, there are few evidence-based programs that have achieved sustained behavior change with families to impact obesity, especially programs targeting young children. While there are many risk factors for childhood obesity including racial and income disparities, an emerging literature has identified the parent-child relationship and adverse early childhood experiences (e.g., child maltreatment) as important predictors of obesity. Parent training programs have been highly successful in reducing child mental health problems and child maltreatment risk, and experts agree that such programs hold promise for reducing children’s risk for obesity. Developing a parent training program optimizing two aspects of child development, parent-child interactions and child health, is likely to promote healthy life trajectories for children later in life. However, by adapting an existing and widely disseminated evidence-based program to address childhood obesity, we will increase the potential for broad reach and public health impact from this intervention. This presentation will discuss the adaption of the evidence-based, in-home parent training program, SafeCare. SafeCare was originally designed to target risk factors of child neglect and physical abuse (e.g., parent-child interactions, child health and home safety). SafeCare has a strong research base, documenting parent and provider acceptability, immediate effects on parents’ skills, and long-term reduction of child maltreatment reports. The adapted program, SafeCare Health+ (SCH+), maintains the structure and training techniques of SafeCare while enhancing the curriculum content for two of the original modules, Parent-Child Interaction and Health, to target child obesity risk factors. The adaptations comprise of expanding the Health Manual to include greater detail on nutrition and physical activity, enhancing the Health module sessions to include specific health topics (e.g., healthy food choices, portion sizes, meal planning, family meals), and focusing PCI activities on more physically engaged activities. SCH+ involves 15 in-home sessions, including the standard 6 sessions for each module along with 3 booster sessions at 2-weeks, 4-weeks, and 8-weeks post-intervention to ensure families maintain skills. The target population for this project is low-income and minority families whose children are age 2 to 5 to promote more positive child health trajectories. We will discuss how the adaptations were developed, the theories and research behind these modifications, and the plan for testing the adapted program.