Healthy Alberta Communities: Impact of a three-year community-based obesity and chronic disease prevention intervention

Objective

To assess the impact of a 3 year (2006–2009) community-based intervention for obesity and chronic disease prevention in four diverse “Healthy Alberta Communities” (HAC).

Methods

Targeted intervention development incorporated the ANGELO conceptual framework to help community stakeholders identify environmental determinants of obesity amenable to intervention. Several inter-related initiatives were implemented. To evaluate, we surveyed separate samples of adults in HAC communities before and after the interventions and compared responses to identical survey questions asked of adults living in Alberta in two waves of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS).

Results

The HAC sample included 4761 (2006) and 4733 (2009) people. The comparison sample included 9775 and 9784 respondents in 2005 and 2009–10 respectively. Self-reported body mass index showed no change, and neither were there significant changes in behaviors relative to secular trends. Most significant outcomes were relevant to social conditions, specifically sense of belonging to community in the intervention communities.

Conclusion

Health outcome indicators at the community level may not be sufficiently sensitive to capture changes which, over a relatively short term, would only be expected to be incremental, given that interventions were directed primarily to creating environmental conditions supportive of changes in behavioral outcomes rather than toward health outcome change directly.