Helena Laroche, MD, FAAP, ABOM

Scientific Medical Director, Center for Children's Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine

Full Biography

Helena Laroche, MD, Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition, received a three-year, $819,130 R01 grant (Award Number 1R01DK139363-01) from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for her project, “Addressing social determinants of health in child obesity treatment using community health workers: the role of parental bandwidth in treatment effectiveness – feasibility study for full-scale RCT.” 

Childhood obesity remains a significant problem in the United States, and it impacts children’s health. Although family-focused child obesity treatment is effective for some, it may be less effective for children from families with adverse social determinants of health also called social risk factors (i.e., poverty, insecure housing, food insecurity, lack of access to healthy foods and safe places to play, and lack of transportation). This is because these programs do not address the extra barriers faced by these families. Challenges caused by social risk factors also take a toll on parental bandwidth. Bandwidth is the capacity to allocate and use limited cognitive resources effectively; it is impacted by scarcity of time or resources. Lack of bandwidth can lead to poor food choices, weight gain, and difficulty learning. 

The goals of this project are to determine whether adding a community health worker (CHW) to a child obesity treatment intervention improves outcomes for children from families with social risk factors; and whether bandwidth is an important mediator. “This research will give insight into how to improve the effectiveness of child obesity treatment for our most vulnerable children by systematically addressing social risk factors and parental bandwidth,” said Dr. Laroche. “This could significantly alter the way providers deliver obesity treatment and improve health equity.”

The specific aims of this project are:

1. To test the feasibility and acceptability of a trial comparing families with social risk factors receiving CHW support plus a child obesity treatment intervention to those receiving one-time resource referrals and the obesity intervention.
2. To compare outcomes between the two groups and gather effect sizes on outcome measures to guide a future full-scale trial.
3. To explore the role of parental bandwidth as a potential mediator for the implementation and treatment outcomes. 

Co-investigators from Children’s Mercy include Andrea-Bradley Ewing, MPA, MA, Emily Hurley, PhD, MPH and Hung-Wen Yeh, PhD, MS, Health Services and Outcomes Research;  Jordon Carlson, PhD, MA, and Sarah Hampl, MD, Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles and Nutrition; and Meredith Dreyer Gillette, PhD, Developmental and Behavioral Health. Co-investigators from University of Kansas Medical Center include Debra Sullivan, PhD, RD, Laura Martin, PhD, and Ann Davis, PhD, MPH, ABPP. Co-investigator Katherine (Mariah) Chrans, IBCLC, PhD, is the Program Director at Community Health Council of Wyandotte County. Community Health Council is collaborating on this grant and providing the CHW services for this project. 

The contents are those of the investigator and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by NIH, or the U.S. Government