Fall 2007 Issue
CDC Science Helps Fight a Supersized Problem
CDC Foundation partnerships arm community leaders and employers with CDC science to battle obesity
We’ve become accustomed to our weekly obesity update. Images of unidentified overweight Americans accompanies the headlines: Obese Americans more likely to be injured on the job. Overweight children miss more school. Recent news reports are showing signs that we’re starting to get serious about our national crisis and are taking some action: Some junk food ads cut from kids' diets. Health policies help workers shape up.
But the problem of obesity is not a quick fix. Genetic, environmental and behavioral factors all play a role. With limited resources to invest, government and business leaders are looking to public health experts for advice.
“We know a lot about the outcomes of obesity,” says William Dietz, M.D., Ph.D., director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity. “What everyone wants to know now is ‘What do we do about it?’ ”
Dietz’s division at CDC is working to provide some of those answers, and the CDC Foundation is supporting this work through several innovative partnerships geared toward equipping community and business leaders with science-based tools and strategies to help foster healthy neighborhoods and worksites.
Helping Community Leaders Make Tough Choices
Dietz explains that while weight management largely depends on individual behavior, environmental factors, such as easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables and safe, walkable neighborhoods influence individual choices. Policymakers who want to take action at the community level to encourage citizens – particularly children and adolescents – to make healthy choices are often faced with a myriad of competing options and tight budgets. A new CDC Foundation partnership funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation aims to help community leaders better weigh their options. The project will develop measures to assess policy and environmental changes, such as building more sidewalks, creating pedestrian-friendly shopping centers and neighborhoods or sponsoring afterschool recreational activities.
“There is a high demand for these measures,” says Dietz. “Community leaders are asking ‘What do we need to change? Is it sidewalks? Is it more produce markets?’ This project will help us measure the impact of these policies related to the prevention and control of childhood obesity and eventually provide community leaders with science-based recommendations for action.”
Calculating Obesity’s Price Tag for Businesses
Concerns about ballooning medical costs are prompting major employers in the United States to ask questions about how to encourage healthier habits as well. A new “obesity cost calculator,” soon available online, will help businesses determine to what extent poor employee health impacts their bottom line. CDC experts collaborated with experts at RTI International to develop the calculator; their work was supported by a CDC Foundation partnership with Sanofi-Aventis. The calculator combines a company’s medical, hospital, pharmaceutical and absenteeism-related costs to give employers a total obesity bill. Some employers may receive a bit of a shock.
Dietz and others hope that when business leaders see the total price tag for obesity, they will be motivated to take a more proactive role in supporting healthier lifestyles for their workers.
“We want to be able to evaluate the costs of obesity to employers, implement the recommended interventions and then evaluate the effect of interventions on cost,” says Dietz.
Supplying Science-based Strategies to Meet Employers’ Demand
The “recommended interventions” to which Dietz refers are being developed by his division through an analysis of available data on the effectiveness of diverse nutrition and physical fitness programs. After the team identifies strategies that have been proven the most effective, they plan to combine them with a set of yet untested but promising practices to create a set of overall recommendations for healthier worksites. Recommendations might include expanded access to fitness facilities, healthier options in cafeterias and snack machines, financial incentives for employees to make healthier choices, or even changes to office buildings and factories that would encourage healthier habits like taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
One of the CDC Foundation’s major initiatives, Healthy Workforce U.S.A., will enable CDC to further refine and strengthen worksite wellness recommendations by conducting in-depth, real-world studies of specific worksites. The Foundation will help identify major employers interested in partnering with CDC on the initiative, and CDC will evaluate each business partner’s specific needs, recommend appropriate interventions, help implement the strategies and then evaluate the results.
While work on the initiative is just getting under way, a Foundation partnership with Cargill has allowed a CDC team to test drive the concept at the company’s facility in Sidney, Ohio. Cargill has partnered with the Foundation and CDC on a number of obesity- and nutrition-targeted projects, including an elementary school health improvement project and an international effort to fortify flour to prevent birth defects. The CDC team conducted an in-depth evaluation of the health needs of Cargill’s Sidney facility’s 450 employees and is scheduled to recommend a plan of action to Cargill’s leadership team this fall.
“CDC has been an instrumental partner in bringing structure and science to our wellness efforts in Sidney, Ohio,” says Stephanie Moore, senior project manager for Cargill’s benefits department. “Choosing appropriate interventions is an important step in designing and implementing a results-oriented worksite wellness program for Cargill’s diverse locations. Ultimately we hope to be ableto take what we have learned from the Sidney wellness assessment and apply it to our other locations and corporate initiatives.”
Healthy Workforce U.S.A. and other CDC Foundation partnerships are quickly developing momentum, fueled by a demand from community and business leaders for science-based solutions to a supersized problem.
To learn more about Healthy Workforce U.S.A. or other related CDC Foundation partnerships, please contact Chloe Tonney at ctonney@cdc.gov or 404.653.0790.