Healthy Start Partnership

To promote healthy weights in childbearing women and their infants in the 8 counties served by Bassett Healthcare

Environmental interventions developed and implemented through a capacity-building partnership

Health, nutrition, and community professionals serving pregnant and postpartum women in the eight counties served by Bassett Healthcare

The funding for the Healthy Start Partnership comes from a USDA CSREES National Research Initiative Grant (Grant No. 2005-35215-15427) to Christine Olson, Professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences (Principal Investigator) and Nancy Wells, Associate Professor in Design and Environmental Analysis.

The overall objectives of the grant-supported project are (1) To develop environmental interventions aimed at preventing excessive weight gain and obesity in childbearing women and their infants through a capacity-building partnership of health and nutrition professionals from an eight county area of rural, Upstate New York and disseminate them nationally through Cornell NutritionWorks; (2) To document the implementation of environmental interventions by partnership members by monitoring changes in the professionals behavior and the programming conducted by their organizations using both quantitative and qualitative research methods: and (3) To evaluate the impact of environmental-level interventions on excessive weight gain in pre-pregnancy and postpartum weight retention in women and rapid weight gain in the first six months of life for their infants and assess the environmental and behavioral change mechanisms through which the interventions lead to decreased weight gain in women and less rapid weight gain in infants.