Descriptive Essay on Pilot Program

The program is a health fair initiative in the form of interactive and educative outreach events that provide primary education, medical screening and preventive therapies for combating obesity among the school-going children. The program also will engage parents by educating them on how to reduce obesity following dietary and physical exercises approaches. It is a preventive health program whose aim is to lessen the prevalence of obesity in San Mateo County, a county where 77% of its population have obesity and overweight issues (Get Healthy SMC Organization, 2013). Obesity is the leading predisposing factor of heart diseases such as coronary heart illness which CDC categorize to be the principal cause of mortality both in San Mateo County and the entire US. Furthermore, obesity is one of the factors that contribute to the CVD alongside physical inactivity, hypertension, aging population and diabetes (Drieling, Ma, & Stafford, 2011).

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The program target school-going children as one of the ways of reducing childhood obesity. The reason for preferring after-school pilot program is to limit children's exposure to TV and computer after school and encourage them to participate in physical exercises (Warren & Henry, 2013). One of the reasons for targeting the population is the fact that San Mateo County's population consist the youth majorly since only 15% of the population being above 65 years (United States Census Bureau, 2015). Therefore, school going children are at higher risks of contracting obesity. After the implementation of the program, one of the long-term objectives is for the San Mateo County Health Department to implement health fair for school-aged children in quarterly basis as part of school curriculum by 2018. The program will form the basis of the educating and encourage parents to adopt the afterschool physical exercises and dietary practices for effective reduction of childhood obesity.

Pilot Program

By definition, a pilot program is a short-term experimental study that gives an overview of the large-scale project and provides the feasibility of the final project. A pilot program will occur in one of San Mateo County neighborhood in the form of after-school initiative where children will enroll in a four-week program consisting of strategies such as physical exercises and dietary practices in a practical environment such as a playground. The purpose of the pilot program will be to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of afterschool strategies, policies, and practices that will be in the final project. The pilot program will be an afterschool activity to avoid interrupting the school program. Physical exercises of the pilot training will include the application of an expert to take the subjects through rigorous physical activities such as running, weight lifting, leisure bicycling, and playing ball games. In every week, the children who will enroll in the pilot program will participate in physical exercises for 30 minutes every day depending on the activity. It can be structured to be interactive with the introduction of competition among the participants. The rationale for choosing physical activities is according to Drieling, Ma, and Stafford's (2011) proposition that exercises, workouts and fitness routines increase the aggregate energy expenditure in the human body helping in shedding excess weight and remain healthy.

Physical activities also decrease the chances of developing abdominal obesity by reducing fat accumulation in the waist. The other part of the pilot study is the dietary intervention where the participants will be taught about healthy eating habits to supplement the physical exercise. According to Warren and Henry (2013) exercising without eating healthy can lead to the compensation of the calories that people burn while working out. The participants will be asked to adhere to a proposed eating routine during the pilot study and they will be served with fruits, organic juices, and water during their exercises and should restrain from taking snacks and other processed foods with high levels of carbohydrates, calories, and salt while at home.

Small-Scale Program to Determine the Feasibility of Mainstream Project

It is possible to use the pilot project to provide a reflection of the possibility of success and effectiveness of the mainstream project. During the pilot study, the effectiveness of the program will rely on the children's changes in their body weights and BMI values. Therefore, before, during and after the pilot program, every child will record his or her weight, waist circumference, and types, and quantity of food intake to assist in calculating their BMI-age-percentile values and nutritional scores. The values will give the average BMI value of the community, and the final project will be useful if the participants will show a significant reduction in their body weights and if their BMI values fall under 25. Such a program can give the overall effectiveness of the final project since the performance of the sample participants in the pilot project will reflect the feasibility of the final project.

Parties Involved in the Final Project

Since San Mateo County has a vast population of 765,135 individuals, the effectiveness of the program will depend on the number of staff members, volunteers, organizations, nutritionists and health experts. The number should be sufficient enough to promote the reach of a significant population of the residents. Some of the organizations that can play a meaningful role in the program include the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for funding and provision of program protocols and procedures. The other organization is San Mateo County Department of Health to avail nutritional and public health experts who will educate people and propose appropriate dietary and physical exercises schedules for the school going children. Other preferable organizations include Fair Oaks Clinic and El Concilio which have metabolic syndrome and diabetes management programs. The number of volunteers will range from 20 to 100 depending on the region. For example, Daly City which has the highest population of 100,556 will require more volunteers than Loma Mar (United States Census Bureau, 2015). The program will be administered in one community at a time using different volunteers in every region to impart language barrier issues and to reduce cost. Some of the activities that are necessary before the launch of the program will encompass completion of self-assessments, session of learning the community language dynamics and demographics and training of program administrators. The first activities facilitate examination of the food to be offered during the program and evaluating amenities for physical exercises regarding water availability, space, and other opportunities. The benefits of the assessments, training and reconnaissance study are that they assist in setting action plans and goals for the programs.

Evaluation of the Pilot Program

The proposed assessment types are the outcome and process evaluations. Process evaluation entails measurement of the quality of the program and the effectiveness of its activities in reaching school age children who are the primary target population (Warren & Henry, 2013). Process evaluation involves the use of DMAIC Six Sigma Methodology in assessing the extent to which the program produce desirable results. DMAIC methodology offers an outline of the steps necessary in improving the process as it assists in defining (D), measuring (M), analyzing (A), improving (I) and controlling (I) the process for desirable outcomes (Sanders & Prior, 2011). The methodology will be applicable the program process which is one the primary element of the Six Sigma. Outcome evaluation covers the other two Six Sigma elements, customer, and employees, who are the target population and the staff respectively in the pilot program. The assessment process will entail the analysis of the outcome of the nutritional interventions and physical activities implemented regarding weight loss, BMI values, food intake and nutritional scores in dietary assessment. Improvement intervention includes the regulation of intensity and periods for exercising, increasing equipment such as playgrounds, using alternative teaching strategies and incorporation of school-based initiatives such as healthy nutrition and PE lessons to supplement the program. If the pilot program yields positive results, the control strategy will entail maintaining the types of exercises and diet as part of the mainstream project.

What other organizations have done

One of the non-governmental organizations that have addressed the initiative in similar ways in San Mateo County is Fair Oaks Clinic in its Vivamos Activos Fair Oaks (VAFOS) program whose aim was to implement the clinical-based counseling and lifestyle initiative for reducing cases of obesity among the Latino Community. VAFOS lifestyle intervention strategies include case management and lifestyle counseling on weight reduction through public health education (Drieling, Ma, & Stafford, 2011). On the other hand, CDC is a government agency that has similar obesity reduction program. In similarity, VAFOS and CDC's Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration Project (CORD) base their working principles on physical activities and nutrition interventions (CDC, 2015). Thus, CORD and VAFOS are essential organizations for borrowing ideas and procedures for efficient execution of the program.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY CDC. (2015). Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration Project (CORD). Retrieved from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/division-information/programs/cord/afterschool.html

CDPH. (2015). Leading Causes of Death. Retrieved from CDPH: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/.../SANMATEO.xlsx

Drieling, R., Ma, J., & Stafford, R. S. (2011). Evaluating clinic and community-based lifestyle interventions for obesity reduction in a low-income Latino neighborhood: Vivamos Activos Fair Oaks Program. BMC Public Health, 11:98.

Get Healthy SMC Organization. (2013). Health Data. Retrieved from Get Healthy SMC Organization: (http://www.gethealthysmc.org/health-data-0

Sanders, M., & Prior, A. (2011). Putting dmaic of six sigma in practice. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(1): 115-126.

United States Census Bureau. (2015). Data and tools. Retrieved from United States Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/06081

Warren, J. M., & Henry, C. J. (2013). Evaluation of a pilot school programme aimed at the prevention of obesity in children. Health Promot International, 21(4): 287-296.