NIDDK grants HealthPartners Research Foundation $7.3M to study childhood obesity

Three new HealthPartners Research Foundation studies will examine ways to prevent and treat childhood obesity and hypertension. One study will look at interventions to prevent obesity in children ages 5-9, another will focus on obesity prevention in children ages 2-5, while another will examine hypertension in children and adolescents, including the quality and cost of care.

The two studies on preventing obesity, “Healthy Homes/Healthy Kids: Pediatric Primary Care-Based Obesity Prevention,” are led by Nancy Sherwood, senior research investigator at HealthPartners Research Foundation. Her team received a $3,765,000 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to conduct the five-year study, which seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of a low-cost intervention targeting obesity prevention in children. She also received $559,959 to study children ages 2-5 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

“Obesity is the number one nutritional problem in the United States and recent obesity trends are alarming,” said Dr. Sherwood. “We need to develop effective interventions to prevent unhealthy weight gain among preschool and early school age children. With children bearing the greatest lifetime health risk from obesity, childhood weight, physical activity and healthy eating are key topics for health researchers.”

A team led by Patrick O’Connor, PhD, senior clinical investigator at HealthPartners Research Foundation and assistant medical director at HealthPartners Medical Group, received a $3,036,000 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to conduct its four-year study, “Childhood Hypertension and Obesity: Diagnosis, Care and Costs.” The team will study the vital signs and clinical conditions of 80,000 children and adolescents with the goal of understanding their hypertension, carefully assessing how blood pressure is linked to being overweight, and assessing the quality of care provided.

“The prevalence of elevated blood pressure in children and adolescents is rising,” said Dr. O’Connor. “Often these young people progress to hypertension as adults, which means more health problems later in life.”

Sherwood’s team will work with the Obesity Center at the University of Minnesota and the Behavioral Medicine Research Group at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. O’Connor’s group is working with Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in California and Institute for Health Research in Colorado.