AHRQ profiles Aqui para Ti

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently profiled Minneapolis-based healthcare clinic Aqui para Ti as part of their “Innovations Exchange” feature online. Aqui para Ti (“Here for you”) has provided a full range of services to Latino adolescents and their families–including medical care, health education, and referrals–since 2002.

As AHRQ notes, a 2009  evaluation of Aqui para Ti showed distinct improvements in health-related outcomes for program participants, the majority of whom (98.5% of the parent population and 80% of the adolescent population) were born outside of the United States. Latino families  can face extraordinary challenges during this transitional time, which may be compounded by high rates of teen pregnancy and inadequate support for parents and others who take on parenting roles within Latino households.

The clinic uses an innovative, family-centered approach, developed after community-led research from the non-profit Wilder Foundation identified a strong need from local parents who requested “guidance on how to talk to their children about healthy behaviors.” Aqui para Ti was designed with this need in mind, and incorporates a unique curriculum for parents delivered through regular, onsite parenting discussion groups.

As the evaluation results indicate, adolescent visitors increased their birth control use as a result of their interaction with Aqui para Ti, with half of all youth electing to use a highly effective birth control method  (i.e., IUD, birth control pill, or patch). 86% of all youth surveyed indicated that their “overall health had improved since initiating program services,” and 100% of respondents noted that they “trusted” Aqui para Ti clinicians.  Parents, too, reported improved communication with children as a result of their interactions with clinic staff, as well as increases in “their confidence in seeking guidance and support from providers [...to] support their children’s development.”

The full AHRQ article, which includes a comprehensive description of Aqui para Ti activities and useful suggestions for adoption, is available here: www.innovations.ahrq.gov/content.aspx?id=2784

For more on Aqui para Ti, including clinic hours and contact information, click  here: www.hcmc.org/depts/hcclinics/Aquiparatiprogram.htm

New resource on childhood mental health

The National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health has issued a new reference for public health professionals who work in childhood mental health.

Free to download here, “A Public Health Approach to Children’s Mental Health”  offers a comprehensive public health approach to children’s mental health. The guide links environmental supports, services, and interventions across child-serving systems; identifies shared language and definitions that can form a platform for communication between multiple child-serving sectors; and provides numerous examples of interventions and policies that show tremendous promise for child mental health services.

The last chapter provides community leaders with a number of strategies that put the public mental health intervention framework into action.

For more information on the guide, click here: http://gucchdtacenter.georgetown.edu/public_health.html.

For more on early childhood mental health, see our winter 2009 Healthy Generations, Early Childhood Mental Health, available here: http://www.epi.umn.edu/mch/index.php/Page/View/Resources

When is a chubby baby TOO chubby?

Posted by Clarence Jones

Chubby Babies?

Isn’t anything sacred? As a lifelong, card carrying member of the “Chubby Baby” club, I was recently surprised by the results of a new study published in February 2010 in the journal Clinical Pediatrics entitled “Identifying the “Tipping Point” Age for Overweight Pediatric Patients” that found over half of all American children are overweight or obese (according to data from the 2007 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)).

There is an emotional appeal – a cuteness- that chubby babies evoke, but  there is a clear risk associated with babies staying chubby to long. According to the study, “The critical period for preventing childhood obesity is during the first two years of a child’s life and for many by three months of age.”

I should not be shocked by this finding.  Obesity is a critical public health issue in America.  Obesity is an often dismissed or overlooked cultural phenomenon, we have change the word “fat’ to “Phat.” I am so old that I remember when being “heavyset” was actually a term of endearment, describing you as healthy or (maybe hefty) or living a life of abundance – of having more than enough. These cultural values persist.

I went to a men’s event once and saw a father give his daughter a plate of food that even I could not have finished. The father never thought about the long- term consequences of his action. He was only taking care of his child in a way that he felt expressed love.

So what do we do? How do we work with parents and caregivers to redefine “healthy” to include smaller portions, fewer trips to McDonalds, less soda and more fresh, wholesome foods?  What suggestions do you, our readers, have?