HCS_SSA_ATTACH 20_NCCOR LETTER_SEPTEMBER 2011 FINAL for OMB-1

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THE HEALTHY COMMUNITIES STUDY

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Attachment 20
NCCOR Letter of Support

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April 15,2011
S. Sonia Arteaga, Ph.D.
Program Director
Clinical Applications and Prevention Branch
Division of Cardiovascular Sciences
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
National Institutes of Health
6701 Rockledge Drive, Suite 10018
Bethesda, MD 20892
Dear Dr. Arteaga,
In the U.S. an obesity-promoting environment has led to an overweight society of adults and children who are at
increased risk of chronic disease. Consequently health-related costs exceed $100 billion annually, with
economic losses totaling an estimated $1 trillion per year. Since the 1970s, the rate of obesity among children
and adolescents has roughly tripled for those 2 to 19 years of age, and the numbers continue to rise. Given the
need to address this urgent national health problem, the Healthy Communities Study (HCS) aims to assess
which community programs and policies are most related to making a difference in preventing these trends from
continuing. This letter is to express NCCOR's strong support for approval of the study.
A defining strength of HCS is its successful collaboration across various groups and agencies in developing a
rigorous research study. Development of the HCS protocol has incorporated the work of 9 substantive
subcommittees and successfully engaged more than 75 scientific experts in discussions of BMI, nutrition,
physical activity, and community programs and policies and how these elements relate to childhood obesity.
Additionally, support from the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) has further
augmented interagency collaboration and the inclusion of various expertise. Since its launch in 2009, NCCOR
has brought together four of the nation's leading research funders - the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in a public-private collaboration to accelerate research
on reversing the epidemic of overweight and obesity among U.S. youth. In addition to supporting HCS, NCCOR
continues to advance the field of obesity research through a number of ongoing projects, including the
Catalogue of Surveillance Systems, Measures Registry, Evaluation Forum, Envision, and more.
The extensive level of community involvement also exemplifies the unique reach and partnership involved in
HCS. The study design of HCS involves the assessment of 279 communities to determine the relationship
between community programs and policies and BMI, diet, and physical activity in children. This large coverage
of communities will help us better understand how the relationships between policies, programs, and youth
outcomes can be critically explored and recommendations of best practices discussed. The large sample size of
the study, including approximately 24,000 youth age 3-15, will also ensure a high level of statistical power and
validity of results.
The Healthy Communities Study is essential in determining the most effective programs and policies to
successfully reduce obesity in the U.S. NCCOR fully supports this effort and highly recommends 0MB to
approve the study.
incere y,
Todd Phillips, Director