Contextual aspects; drivers and brakes

Valorisation of the past experience: the BMInforma project

In the Province of Reggio Emilia there are about 500.000 inhabitants and about 90 family paediatricians who share the common interest for promoting prevention actions focused on healthy behaviours of children. They are convinced that the motivation of parents and their children is the first step to fight against childhood obesity and they put into action the elements to push this motivation following a scientific approach and looking for evidence. Thus they created a cohesive group that included all the LHA’s primary prevention routine activities on childhood health promotion and services dealing with secondary prevention and care of childhood obesity: the BMInforma project.(Italian: “Bambini Molto in forma”; English: “very fit children”).

Secondary prevention consists of population-based overweight and obesity screening of children aged 5 years. According to the results of a trial conducted locally, families of overweight girls are invited to participate in a motivational interview program led by the family paediatrician, while overweight boys receive recommendations and body mass index (BMI) monitoring. Obese children are referred to a multidisciplinary team that organizes group interventions involving family paediatricians, dieticians, and psychologists. Obese children with pathological conditions are referred to the paediatric endocrinology unit at the hospital for care of specific pathologies.

This network of services, initially developed in 2011, is still being fine-tuned.
Several research projects are nested in this program, such as a cohort study on distal and proximal determinants of childhood obesity and trials to test the efficacy of individual and group interventions for overweight and obese children. Collaboration with other municipal agencies outside the health sector, such as schools, transportation, and city planning, and with not for profit organizations is becoming more and more important, in line with the indications of the 2014-2019 National Prevention Plan. The BMInforma project is a perfect setting to test innovative and traditional tools for co-creating services with families and for co-governance involving the nonprofit and private sectors and the many province-wide municipal administrations.

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The anticipatory guides

The anticipatory guides project was born a few years ago from the request of the city community with the aim of providing useful tools for families to support the development of children. The project involved municipal, social and health agencies of the community.
At a later time we worked hard to offer this tool in the BeBa app. The anticipatory guides not only offer information, but also support parents in their efforts to promote the health, growth and development of their children. Having useful information about the child’s growth, such as playing with them, at the right moment, improves the parent’s sense of self-efficacy and does not make up unrealistic expectations of the child.

Please listen to the videos and answer:

What is new about this particular service offered to families?

What do different stakeholders see as the drivers of co-creation in the case of supporting families to combat child obesity?

What could be possible obstacles and what could be needed to overcome those?