News Releases

February CHNA Roundtable Meeting: Local Efforts to Address Obesity in Northeast Ohio

The Center kicked off the first CHNA Roundtable meeting of 2017 centered around learning from local community partners focused on addressing obesity in Northeast Ohio. Obesity consistently ranks as a key health concern in Northeast Ohio and area hospitals are seeking to learn more from community partners working to address this health need.

Six organizations shared information helpful in shaping the CHNA Roundtable’s obesity focus.

• Tom O’Brien, program director for Neighborhood Connections, helped frame the conversation by highlighting the importance of community engagement in efforts to address obesity in Northeast Ohio.
• Insights into how food as medicine initiatives can positively impact obesity rates and existing pilot programs were provided by Jamie Sullivan, vice president of external affairs at the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
• Helen Dumski, program director at the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland, described the Stay Well program that aims to improve the health of its clients.
• An overview of the emerging Care-a-Van initiative was provided by Sara Continenza, founder and president of Whole Vision, LLC.
• Rhonda Sharpley, co-founder and certified health coach at Healthy Living Kitchen, provided an overview of its hands-on cooking classes, lunch and learns and demo and tasting classes that aim to address both obesity prevention and intervention.
• Elizabeth Hustead, SNAP-Ed social marketing coordinator at OSU Extension and Human Sciences, highlighted the key features of a social marketing campaign designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among households with children under 18 years old who are at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.

Over the coming months, The Center will be working with member hospitals to hone in on opportunities to supplement their existing efforts to address obesity in Northeast Ohio.

For more information about The Center’s CHNA Roundtable, please contact Kirstin Craciun, director of community outreach at 216.255.3616 or via email.