Evaluation of Model Communities: Healthy Weight Collaborative

In 2010, the National Initiative for Children’s Healthcare Quality (NICHQ) implemented the “Collaborate for Healthy Weight” initiative to create partnerships between primary care, public health, and community-based organizations to discover sustainable ways to promote healthy weight and eliminate health disparities in communities across the US. As part of the initiative, NICHQ created the Healthy Weight Collaborative (HWC or “the Collaborative”), a national quality improvement effort to share and spread evidence-based and promising practices to prevent and treat obesity among children and families.

In this two-phased learning collaborative, NICHQ worked with approximately 50 community teams of primary care, public health, and community-based organizations to implement and test a set of six evidence-based and promising healthy weight strategies. In Phase 1 (July 2011 through July 2012), NICHQ worked with 10 community teams; in Phase 2 (March 2012 through March 2013), the project worked with approximately 40 more teams.

Mathematica conducted a formative evaluation of the implementation and early outcomes of the HWC, using a design tailored to address the unique features of the project. The integrated mixed methods approach included a literature review of evidence-based clinic- and community-based interventions, observations of learning sessions, a review of HWC documents and performance measures, interviews with HRSA and NICHQ managers and staff, site visits, and network surveys assessing the teams' capacity for collaboration. Results showed that the community teams made substantial progress implementing the HWC change package of healthy weight strategies. Many teams also strengthened their collaborative capacity and multisector memberships through their participation in the collaborative.