The High Obesity Program: Overview of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Cooperative Extension Services Efforts to Address Obesity

The burden of obesity and other chronic diseases negatively affects the nation’s health, businesses, economy, and military readiness. The prevalence is higher in certain geographic locations. Beginning in 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity awarded funding to 11 land-grant universities through the High Obesity Program. This program implemented evidence- and practice-based strategies with a goal to increase access to nutritious foods and places to be physically active in counties in which the prevalence of obesity among adults was more than 40%. In these counties, funded land-grant universities developed partnerships and collaborations to work with community organizations, public health agencies, and other stakeholders to promote policy and environmental changes that address obesity. Data were collected by the Cooperative Extension Service in each selected county with technical assistance from land-grand universities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 2 million people were reached by the nutrition and physical activity policy, systems, and environmental interventions implemented.