Blog Series - Collective Impact in Public Health
From Maine to Iowa to California, collective impact is helping to address childhood obesity by facilitating changes in the built environment, regional food systems, school nutrition and physical activity policies, and messaging around nutrition and physical activity, to name but a few intervention strategies.
The city of Somerville, MA, a suburb of Boston, was one of the first communities in the United States to demonstrate that a community-wide, systems-oriented approach to obesity prevention-- Shape Up Somerville-- could impact children’s weight. Overweight and obesity were reduced among school-aged children as a result of this intervention, leading Shape Up Somerville to become a national model for childhood obesity prevention.The program, which impacts all populations in the city including those that live, work, play and learn in Somerville, began as a community-based participatory research project and evolved over time into a city-led initiative that engages multi-sector partners and embraces elements of collective impact.
