Dr. Stephenie Lemon is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Prevention Research Center at UMass Medical School. She is an epidemiologist and implementation scientist who specializes in obesity prevention and control intervention and policy research.
Dr. Lori Pbert is Professor of Medicine, Associate Chief of the Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, and Director of the Center for Tobacco Treatment Research and Training at UMass Medical School. She is a clinical psychologist whose research focuses on obesity and tobacco prevention and treatment in clinical and community settings.
Questions & Answers
The intervention is appropriate for school settings across the country. The intervention model is designed to be flexible. Within the proposed structure of an onsite coach who works closely with an employee advisory board, we found that using a participatory process to tailor the intervention components selected to the specific setting is an effective approach.
Facilitators to implementation include having a paid, dedicated onsite coach who is responsible for program implementation. Some potential challenges that program implementers may face include getting leadership buy-in to devote resources to support staff time to oversee the program, and employee resistance to implementing particular policies, specifically those that pertain to restricting access to unhealthy foods and drinks.
We recommend that evaluation be integrated from the beginning of the program planning process with input from an employee advisory committee. We developed a survey that can be used to help guide the formative evaluation needed to adapt the intervention and a survey that can be used to monitor employee participation and receptivity to specific components of the comprehensive intervention.
Dr. Stephenie Lemon: My current work is focused on developing best practices for implementing physical activity policies across diverse worksites.
Dr. Lori Pbert: My current research is focused on obesity and tobacco prevention and treatment for youth and adults.