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Adapting a Tertiary-Care Pediatric Weight Management Clinic to Better Reach Spanish-Speaking Families

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Abstract

Pediatric obesity continues to be an epidemic, affecting Hispanic children disproportionately. Recent recommendations outline a step-wise approach to the treatment of overweight and obese children, culminating in tertiary-care, multidisciplinary programs. We detail here how our tertiary-care, family-based, pediatric weight management clinic addressed the problem of few Spanish-speaking families enrolling in treatment after referral by adding a Bilingual Case Manager. Utilizing a family-centered, high-contact, personal approach, our program increased the number of Hispanic families enrolling over ten-fold. Further, outcomes in Hispanic families were equal to or better than other racial/ethnic groups. Lessons learned from this experience may benefit other obesity treatment programs trying to improve care of Spanish-speaking families.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Karen Klein (Research Support Core, Office of Research, Wake Forest University Health Sciences) for her assistance in editing this manuscript. Dr. Skelton was supported by a grant from NICHD/NIH Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23 HD061597). This work was also supported in part by a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust (No. 2009-098) and The Duke Endowment (No. 6110-SP).

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No financial disclosures were reported by the authors of this paper.

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Correspondence to Joseph A. Skelton.

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Guzman, A., Irby, M.B., Pulgar, C. et al. Adapting a Tertiary-Care Pediatric Weight Management Clinic to Better Reach Spanish-Speaking Families. J Immigrant Minority Health 14, 512–515 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-011-9526-x

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