The Families Improving Health Together (FIT) Program: Initial evaluation of retention and research in a multispecialty clinic for children with obesity

BACKGROUND: Obesity affects ∼17% of US children, with parallel increases in multiple comorbidities, especially among African‐, Asian‐, Hispanic‐, and Native‐Americans. Barriers to patient retention in pediatric obesity programs include lack of centralized care, and frequent subspecialty MD visits which conflict with patient school attendance and parental work attendance as well as with support service utilization. Lack of integration of multispecialty clinical care with interdisciplinary research is a major barrier to fuller exploration of the treatment, prevention, and understanding of obesity in childhood. OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis, a novel multispecialty/interdisciplinary clinical and research infrastructure with strong emphasis on a primary obesity care physician for children with early‐onset (<9 years) obesity (Families Improving health Together [FIT]) could promote lower patient attrition (primary goal) and foster productive research in pediatric obesity (secondary goal). RESULTS: Data support the hypotheses. Over 15 months, FIT reported a >90% participant retention (p < 0.001 vs. expected rate based on other studies of similar programs). Though 90% of children had at least one adiposity‐related comorbidity and 70% had at least two, there was no need for additional subspecialist visits with cardiologists, endocrinologists, gastroenterologists, or molecular geneticists. Three abstracts were presented at national meetings, and two manuscripts were published all with junior faculty as primary authors. CONCLUSION: This pilot study suggests that an integrated multispecialty/interdisciplinary approach to children with obesity improves patient retention and can be integrated successfully with research.