Training Child Care Inspectors to Deliver Health Messaging: a Quality Improvement Pilot Project
Farewell, C.V.; Puma, J.; Mason, M.A.; Peirce, P.; Shimomura, M.; Harms, M.
Health Promotion Practice 21(2): 188-197
2020
ISSN/ISBN: 1524-8399 PMID: 29985063 DOI: 10.1177/1524839918786952Document Number: 207053
Early childhood obesity is at epidemic proportions. Early child care providers have a unique opportunity to instill healthy eating and active living behaviors in children that can foster lifelong health. Academic-community partnerships that involve collaborations between child care centers, local public health departments, and universities provide one avenue to strengthening healthy eating and active living-related knowledge and skills among early child care providers. This quality improvement pilot intervention, titled Healthy Child Care Makes a Healthy Start, is one example of this type of collaboration. This quality improvement pilot project consisted of two complementary intervention components. Inspectors were trained to cofacilitate a strategic planning process with university researchers to help providers implement healthy eating and active living-related policy, system, and environment changes in their child care homes and centers. An average of five changes were implemented in participating child care locations. Inspectors also received training on health-related best practices and delivered 1-minute health messages to child care providers during routine inspection visits. This type of innovative partnership has the potential to leverage a currently existing relationship between child care providers and licensing and regulation inspectors and shift the relationship to include dissemination and implementation of health messaging in child care center and home settings.