Greenlight Plus Study: Approaches to Early Childhood Obesity Prevention

The investigators propose a randomized trial to compare the effectiveness of two different approaches to early childhood obesity prevention in children 0-2 years of age. The investigators will randomize 900 parent-infant dyads, recruited from six newborn nurseries/primary care clinics. The participating organizations are part of both CORNET, a national practice-based research network of pediatric residency primary care practices supported by the Academic Pediatric Association (APA), and PCORnet, the national research network supported by PCORI. In the nursery or at the first newborn clinic visit, eligible families will be consented and randomized to one of two arms. In Arm 1 ("Greenlight"), during each of the recommended well child visits from 0-24 months, pediatric residents, trained in clear health communication skills and shared goal-setting, will use the Greenlight Toolkit of low literacy, age-specific, parent education booklets to promote healthy family behaviors and obesity prevention. In Arm 2 ("Greenlight Plus"), families will receive the Greenlight intervention plus a health information technology (HIT) intervention aimed at supporting family goal-setting and behavior change. This design allows us to determine if HIT and the asynchronous support it provides between well-child visits can promote additional behavior change and obesity prevention.

Specific Aims & Hypotheses (H) include:

Aim 1: Compare the effectiveness of the 2 arms on weight-for-length and other weight measures through age 2.

H1: Arm 2 will be significantly better than Arm 1 in supporting healthy child weight-for-length trajectory over 2 years;

Aim 2: Compare the effectiveness of the two approaches on parent-reported outcomes, including child feeding and physical activity behaviors, parent feeding beliefs and behaviors, media use, and quality of doctor-patient communication.

H2: Arm 2 will be significantly better at improving parent-reported health behaviors.

Aim 3: Examine differences in main outcomes by social determinants, including race/ethnicity, language, health literacy.

H3: A literacy- and culturally-sensitive approach to obesity prevention will result in equal subgroup improvements.

Aim 4: To compare weight-for-length trajectory over 2 years in both intervention arms with a non-enrolled comparison group, using data from the PCORnet Common Data Model at participating sites.

H4: PCORnet analysis will reveal the benefit of both Greenlight approaches (Arms 1 and 2) compared to before Greenlight intervention implementation and the added benefit of Arm 2 (Greenlight Plus) over other approaches.

Inclusion criteria

For this study, eligible caregiver/infant dyads will be those with:

• an English- or Spanish-speaking parent/legal guardian,
• infant born in the newborn nursery with plans to have care in the local clinic OR presenting in that clinic for the first newborn visit (1-21 days of life),
• attendance at first newborn clinic visit
• no plans to leave the clinic within 2 years
• Completion of baseline data collection (survey data, child weight and length measures prior to randomization).
• Own a smartphone with access to data services

Exclusion criteria

Infant exclusion criteria:

• born prior to 34 weeks gestation or birth weight <1500 grams; weight <3rd %tile at enrollment (World Health Organization growth curves); or
• any chronic medical problem that may affect weight gain (e.g., metabolic disease, uncorrected congenital heart disease, renal disease, high-calorie formula; cleft palate; Down syndrome).

Caregiver exclusion criteria include:

• <18 years old;
• serious mental or neurologic illness that impairs ability to consent/participate;
• poor visual acuity (corrected vision worse than 20/50 with Rosenbaum Screener).
• biological mother is HIV-positive