Kaiser Making Some Obesity Inroads

Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente's multi-million dollar investment in curbing obesity is bearing some positive results.

According to a recently published study in the American Journal of Evaluation, Kaiser's community-based investments in encouraging school-age children in Northern California to participate in more physical activity has led to at least 20% of those populations reaching the targets set by the initiatives in four out of the nine programs examined.

The study correlated the effectiveness of these outreach efforts with them being “high dose” – reaching large swaths of the population.

“Kaiser Permanente and our partners have been at this work for a long time and it is exciting to see that we are having an impact,” said Pamela Schwartz, Kaiser's director of community benefit program evaluation.

Kaiser has been campaigning aggressively to reduce the nation’s obesity rate.