Jump IN’s 2018: High Impact

When Jump IN was stood up as an organization in 2014, it was given the task of reducing childhood overweight and obesity in central Indiana from 43% to 38% over ten years, by 2025. If nothing is done to address this growing public health crisis, research tells us that by 2025, the rate will grow to 53% – that’s more than every other kid. How do we do it? By creating healthy places, healthy neighborhoods and healthy communities where kids and families can make healthy choices easily and affordably.  We integrate proven best practices into schools, child cares, and workplaces. We address healthy food access, the built environments, clinician engagement, and policies that influence access to healthy choices. We collect data to rigorously document our impact.  And we take the 5-2-1-0 concept into youth-serving organizations to include in their programming and share the message with the public. The process of moving that 43% in a sustainable, meaningful way takes a long time. Integrating best practices is our focus and we have a lot to share. 

Here’s a look at what we accomplished in 2018: 

HEALTHY PLACES

Child Care Training:

• 75 new child cares participated in the evidence-based training program Taking Steps to Healthy Success developed by Nemours and the CDC. 
• Anthem Foundation funding enabled Jump IN to evaluate statewide Paths to QUALITY coaches on the nutrition and physical activity information and resources being shared across the state through the Child Care Resource and Referral agencies.  In late 2018, Early Learning Indiana received funding from Nemours to offer nutrition and physical activity best practices technical assistance through NAP SACC, the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care, a tool to be shared with statewide Child Care Resource and Referral agency coaches, ensuring that statewide coaches draw from consistent, uniform nutrition and physical activity best practices tools.  
• In 2017 and 2018, Jump IN worked with Early Learning Indiana to influence the Family and Social Services Administration’s (FSSA) requirements for child care providers accepting Child Care Development Fund vouchers (CCDF, the program for low-income families to access high quality early childhood programs).   Providers accepting CCDF are required to participate in continuing education courses each year.  Beginning in 2019, four in-person courses on early childhood nutrition and physical activity have been developed for Indiana Learning Pathways, the statewide professional development hub, as part of the selections available to fulfill required training, impacting licensed child care centers across the state and potentially thousands of early learners.
• In 2018, Jump IN partnered with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to bring the new Healthier Generation Online Store to child care providers in Indiana.  In an effort to remove the cost barrier of consistently providing healthy foods in child care settings, the Alliance partnered with Amazon to create an online store that meets CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Plan) guidelines.  Jump IN has supported this effort, promoting the resource statewide and helping lead training webinars to encourage and support provider participation.  The online marketplace can be found here. 

Schools: 

• Jump IN received a two-year grant from the Indianapolis Colts to partner with four school districts (IPS, MSD Lawrence, MSD Warren, and MSD Pike) to launch Jump Right UP, Jump IN’s schools program that provides technical support to 35 schools to create and implement school wellness policies.  The program will impact more than 23,000 students across the districts.  The Indianapolis Star featured some of Jump IN’s school work, with special focus on MSD Warren’s Sunny Heights Elementary School.  The story can be read here. 
• As part of Jump IN’s MOU with Indianapolis Public Schools, IPS created a new full-time wellness position, dedicated to health and wellness throughout the district, a significant step in working with our school district partners on how they can embed best practices in their work and make health and wellness part of the district’s culture.
• Jump IN secured support from the Pacers Foundation for school wellness work in MSD Warren. The photo below shows Warren teachers being trained in Playworks’ method so that they can incorporate it into their school days.  An added component of Playworks’ program is to help kids develop conflict resolution and cooperation skills – skills they can practice and hone while they’re playing.

HEALTHY NEIGHBORHOODS

Healthy Food Access:

• Thanks to funding from the Glick Fund, Jump IN launched its pilot of the Food Trust’s approach to healthy corner stores, the Healthy Food Retail Initiative (HFRI), training community partners (Marion Co. Health, Marion Co. Purdue Extension wellness staff, and paid community neighbors from Carriage House East Apartments) to interview more than 300 community residents, assess the community’s food habits and needs, and identify corner stores in Lawrence and the far east side to increase offering healthy options at affordable pricing.  The Food Trust is a national organization based in Philadelphia that has established a proven system of improving the quality of food offered in convenience stores, gas stations, dollar stores and other corner stores – at affordable prices.  Lawrence and the far eastside are rated as a severe food desert; this project offers a solution relatively quickly. The first two corner stores went through their conversions in October 2018 and the project will receive additional funding in 2019 from the Anthem Foundation to convert an additional 3 stores!

Marathon Gas Station (Tahas LLC) – 9950 E. 38^th Street, Indianapolis, IN 46235

Inventory Results:

• Added 13 new healthy items total
• Added 6 new fresh produce items at checkout
• Added celery and carrot cups with peanut butter
• Added 5 new healthy snack items at checkout

Ali Saleh, Store Owner – “The bananas, apples and peaches are selling. We actually had to get some more because they ran out.”

The store was given a healthy checkout, healthy snack rack, hand fruit display, and a new cooler at the entrance for healthy beverages and fresh grab-and-go snacks.  In addition, the team removed the tobacco signage from the store’s exterior and will replace them with healthier window wraps. 

Tienda Morelos – 8989 Pendleton Pike, Lawrence, IN 46226

Inventory Results:

• Added 5 new healthy items total
• Added 3 new fresh fruit items
• Added 1 healthy snack item at checkout
• Added 1 set of individual bottled waters for sale in healthy beverage refrigerator

Lady Medoza, Manager – “We never thought about selling individual bottles of water before but customers are already buying a lot of them!”             

Before                                                                   

After

• The project learned in late 2018 that we will receive an additional $150,000 in funding from Anthem in 2019 to complete an additional three corner store conversions.
• Community gardens that were created in 2017 have grown in 2018 and increased the amount of food pantries with donated food and neighborhood individuals through mobile delivery and retail sales at affordable pricing. Three local gardens in the greater Lawrence area contributed an estimated 20,000 pounds of fresh produce to local food pantries by the close of the 2018 growing season. The Lawrence Community Gardens summer youth gardening  camp exponentially increased its enrollment in 2018 and plans to increase again in 2019.

• Three food pantries in partnership with Purdue Extension added “healthy nudges” to make the pantry healthier and increase consumption of healthier, less processed food:  increasing labeling of healthy food options, incorporating cooking education workshops, and providing other resources to pantry and retail consumers that help them make good food choices.

HEALTHY COMMUNITIES

Outreach:

• Jump IN has promoted the 5-2-1-0 campaign aggressively through social media, reaching over 1,200 friends and followers in 2017 resulting in dozens of constituent engagements each week.  We have had over 1,200 posts since beginning our campaign in June 2016.
• In 2017 and 2018, Jump IN partnered with three health education partners to extend 5-2-1-0 learning objectives to children and youth throughout the central Indiana region. LifeSmart Youth (formerly the Social Health Association of Indiana) added 5-2-1-0 content and materials into its “Human Growth and Development” classes serving grades 4-6. In addition, the Ruth Lilly Health Education at Marian University incorporates 5-2-1-0 into the “Food for Thought” program for grades 4-6. And starting in 2017, Managed Health Services (MHS)added 5-2-1-0 to MHS’ “Rosie’s Rockin’ Recess,” an exercise and dance school-visit program by mascot RosieRoo the kangaroo for students in grades K-3. Together these programs reached 10,122 central Indiana students during school year 2017. Reports to-date for school year 2018 indicate these programs reached an additional 7,816 students (additional reports pending).
• In 2018, Jump IN expanded to 12 partners in our 5-2-1-0 messaging and programming, including Indy Parks, Monumental Marathon, ProAct, Jameson Camp, the Center for Urban Wellness, Lawrence Schools, the Trustees Office of Lawrence Township, the YMCA, and a new STEMLab program at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.  Jump IN is in the midst of creating a new 5-2-1-0 patch for the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, which will be implemented in 2019.   Additionally, Jump IN works with WFYI to incorporate 5-2-1-0 messaging into its Bright by Text program, a system of sending short, daily texts to parents (and anyone who signs up) developmentally appropriate information, activities, and more from trusted national and local resources, all focused on children from birth to five years old.

Connecting clinical and community resources. 

• Jump IN works to find ways to support clinicians in referring patients to accessible community resources (related to nutrition and physical activity) to provide necessary interventions for those patients.  In July 2018, Jump IN hosted national childhood obesity expert Dr. Bill Dietz, who facilitated a wide-ranging discussion of emerging opportunities for health care systems and health care payers to consider in efforts to strengthen prevention and management of childhood obesity. 

• Jump IN worked with the Indiana Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP) to disseminate several key clinical decision support tools to 1,800 family medicine physicians in Indiana.  We republished the American Academy of Pediatrics’ “Algorithm for the Assessment and Management of Childhood Obesity” in Frontline Physician, the quarterly member publication of the IAFP in spring 2018. We also will republish the widely endorsed 2017 “Provider Competencies for the Prevention and Management of Obesity” as part of our effort to engage health providers and systems in strengthening comprehensive clinical approaches to childhood obesity and overweight.   

Data collection and analysis:

•  Jump IN completed the third and final collection of weight status biometrics (heights and weights) from area schools using the FitnessGram platform. Over three years of the project, height and weight data from more than 60,000 central Indiana school students was collected and analyzed.
• Jump IN prepared an analysis of proportions of children overweight or obese in the eight-county Jump IN region using not only the FitnessGram samples of students in grades 4-12, but also three consecutive years of biometric data collected from preschoolers enrolled in the Taking Steps to Healthy Success ECE provider program during school years 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17; as well as regional reports prepared for Jump IN by the Indiana State Department of Health WIC program, which tracks obesity and overweight rates among two- through four-year-olds enrolled in the WIC program. The combination of sample sizes and confidence intervals means that these data suggest an essentially flat trend line over the past 3 to 5 years in prevalence of overweight and obesity among children in the Jump IN region.

Above: Several datasets, including two developed by Jump IN and partners, suggest that obesity and overweight among central Indiana children has stabilized, but at levels that remain far too high.

• To strengthen regional estimates of childhood overweight and obesity, in 2018 Jump IN also continued a feasibility study with partners at Regenstrief Institute, IU Fairbanks School of Public Health, and Marion County Public Health Department to investigate the reliability and usability of pediatric weight status data captured in electronic health records for use in estimating population prevalence of overweight and obesity. As 2019 begins, the research team is seeking additional data from more health systems and developing a strategy to support additional analysis. If health system data proves a reliable source for prevalence estimates, we believe this approach will provide a more sustainable, cost-effective solution for monitoring childhood overweight and obesity rates in the Jump IN, central Indiana region.

Jump IN in the community:

• Jump IN has joined the pilot Indianapolis Greenways Partnership. The program launched in October at the Fall Creek Trail and will provide creative programming and host events throughout Indianapolis to encourage more people to hike, bike, walk, and engage with parks and trails throughout the city.

• Jump IN presented at the second annual Small Pantry Summit in March 2018. The Summit was created by the Indy Hunger Network to create best practices tools and communication channels for pantry staff and volunteers throughout the city.  Jump IN also presented at the People’s Food Summit, hosted by the Indy Food Council. The Summit enabled people who work and volunteer in Indianapolis’ food systems, as well as interested community partners, to explore ways that food works and can improve in Indianapolis. The keynote speaker was Karen Shore of The Food Trust, speaking about our work on the Healthy Food Retail Initiative.
• Jump IN continues to participate in a wide network of community partnerships: Early Learning Advisory Council, Top 10, Healthier Indiana, the Indiana Public Health Association, Covering Kids and Families, Kohls Cares Infant Mortality Project, the Diabetes Impact Project (DIP-IN) and many others.

In 2019, Jump IN will continue to work to embed best practice strategies into existing systems and environments.  We hope you’ll follow our efforts throughout the year and we wish you and yours a very happy and healthy 2019!