2012 WON - Completed - General Information

Please click here to submit your proposal.

Please click here for Proposal Review Criteria and Process instructions.

Call for Presentation Proposals

Persons and organizations engaged in developing, implementing, and evaluating policy system and
environmental strategies to address obesity are invited to submit proposals.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presents Weight of the Nation™ 2012, its national conference on obesity prevention and control. The theme for the 2012 conference is Moving Forward, Reversing the Trend. Conference organizers will illustrate this theme through presentations—concurrent, plenary, poster or video—that emphasize how communities; early care and education facilities; medical care facilities; workplaces; states, territories, and tribes; and schools can change nutrition and physical activity environments to prevent and control obesity. The conference will convene elected and appointed public policy makers; federal, tribal, state, local, and territorial public health practitioners; media and social marketing experts; and partners and researchers vested in obesity prevention and control.

The proposals will be used to select track specific concurrent panelists and poster presentations.

Concurrent sessions will foster discussion among panelists and with the audience on the use of policy, system and environmental approaches (PSE) to promote dietary quality, increase physical activity and prevent obesity. The concurrent session tracks are: agriculture, access, and sustainability; built environment and transportation; early care and education; law and legal authorities; medical care; schools; states and communities; and workplaces. An overview of each track with instructions on proposal submissions is detailed below.
Poster sessions will feature traditional and film technology formats. As only a limited number of proposals will be selected for oral presentation, other highly rated proposals may be invited as posters.

Conference Goals

Present policy, system and environmental approaches (PSE) that show promise or demonstrated success for improving population level health per nutrition, physical activity and obesity health indicators.
Inform and engage policy makers on key obesity prevention priorities.
Learn to more effectively coordinate with media especially on defining and portraying “health” as a normative component of one’s lifestyle.
Increase the use of evaluation to develop and invest in impactful PSE approaches.

Conference Objectives

Highlight solutions: Present strategies that overcome barriers to the primary prevention of obesity for youth and adults in early careand education, state and community based health departments and organizations, medical care, schools, and workplaces.
Heighten focus on policy, system and environmental approaches: Highlight innovative and/or impactful initiatives that leverage policy, system and environmental approaches to prevent and control obesity.
Build the evidence-base: Present the evidence base for policy, system and environmental approaches to prevent and control obesity in the intervention settings, review and instruct on the use of indicators to design and evaluate initiatives.

Submission Instructions

Submit online beginning August 1, 2011 and no later than 5:00 PM EST Monday, October 10, 2011
Prior to beginning the online submission process, please make the following determinations for your proposal:
- Submission type: oral presentation, poster presentation or film & technology presentation (video submissions cannot exceed 3 minutes).
- Oral presentations can be submitted for an entire panel or an individual speaker.
- Film & technology presentations require a written proposal. A copy of the film is due in CD or DVD format to CDC no later than January 5, 2012. Please send to Weight of the Nation™ Video Submissions, CDC-DNPAO, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, K-24, Atlanta, GA 30341.
Word Limit - 600 words or less. Proposal should present the challenge or barrier; discuss the policy, system or environmental strategy adopted; identify the high-level tactics, partnerships, tools and/or resources needed to implement the strategy; and discuss evaluation results that demonstrate impact.
Indicate applicability of the strategy to one or more of the intervention settings: early care and education; medical care; schools; communities; or workplaces.
Indicate credentials, institutional affiliation, title for presentation, and clearly outline subject matter expertise.

CDC encourages submissions that focus on strategies that demonstrate positive health outcomes for disproportionately impacted populations. Proposals will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Does the proposal address the track specific objectives?
2. Does the proposal present policy, system or environmental approaches to prevent and control obesity?
3. Does implementation of the strategy or approach require or rely on coordination across settings, sectors or jurisdictions?
4. Are there clear articulation of partnerships, tools or resources needed to implement the strategy?
5. Are there clear indicators of success for the strategy?
6. Does the strategy or approach proactively address disparities and/or social determinants of health?

Key Terms and Definitions

Policy

Policy is a law, regulation (including local-level codes and ordinances), procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary practice of governments and other institutions. Policy decisions are frequently reflected in resource allocations. Health can be influenced by policies in many different sectors, e.g., transportation policies can encourage physical activity (pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly community design); policies in schools can improve nutritional content of school meals.

System

Infrastructure or organizational constructs that either promote or discourage physical activity and healthy dietary behaviors (e.g., lack of coordination between transportation and housing units, poor coordination between medical care centers and community services for overweight and obesity, failure to integrate health across related sectors).

Environment

The physical and social aspects of the settings in which we make food and activity choices and includes places where persons obtain services and care, live, learn, work, play and worship. The environment influences health in many ways - through exposures to hazards (e.g., violence that prevents outdoor leisure activity) or health facilitators (e.g., access to affordable healthful food and beverages).

Early Care and Education

Applies to places that provide child day care and education programs for infants and young children typically up to age 6. Includes public or private licensed child care centers, home-based child care, early learning centers, Head Start programs, and pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs. This setting does not include foster care, before/after school programs, or summer camp.

Community

Refers to the neighborhoods and institutions where people live, play, and worship. Foster care programs are indexed under the community setting. Adult care programs that do not occur in a medical facility are assigned to the community setting.

Medical Care

Applies to organizations that provide medical and health care services. Includes hospitals, urgent care centers, primary care facilities, and physicians’ offices.

Restaurant/Retail

Focuses on those places where food is sold. Includes restaurants, fast food outlets, cafeterias, dairy stores, delicatessens, bakeries, specialty food stores, natural food stores, groceries, convenience stores, supermarkets, sidewalk vendors, farmers’ markets, farm stands, and farms. Vending machines are included in the setting in which they are located. For example, if a vending machine is located in a school facility, the setting is “School.”

School/After School

Refers to educational institutions including elementary schools (including kindergarten), middle schools, junior high schools, high schools, charter schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. These institutions may be private or public. This setting covers before- and after-school programs for school-aged children (beginning in kindergarten) that are offered contiguous to the school day whether in school or a community-based facility (e.g., YMCA).

Workplace

Refers to places of employment, private or public, white collar or blue collar.

Continuing Education Requirements

As an organization committed to providing quality continuing education (CE) activities to its membership and meeting registrants, CDC must adhere to the requirements of various accrediting bodies and professional organizations with which it collaborates. In the past CDC has made CE credits/contact hours available in a variety of professional disciplines. Each discipline has its own unique requirements of educational activities, and the organizations that provide them. Because CDC strives to make as many of its educational activities as possible eligible for CE, it is essential that the presenters—whether by panel, photo/video or poster session—meet all CE requirements and follow discipline-specific regulations.