The Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is offering a second round of funding for innovative rapid response and pilot study projects that examine environmental mechanisms or policy changes related to the childhood obesity epidemic. Projects should use systems science concepts to tackle issues that will potentially inform the development or confirmation of community- or population-based interventions. The application process is open to investigators in the U.S. and globally.
The Center expects to fund up to three projects at up to $30,000 each. The deadline for submitting a study concept summary is July 22, 2012. Full proposals (invited only) are due August 1, 2012..
An informational teleconference is scheduled for July 12 at 11 a.m. ET. For full details and application information, visit the Global Center on Childhood Obesity online at http://www.jhgcco.org.
The Center has recently funded three such projects in the first round, and will offer such grants in the next five years to support similar projects worldwide. The Center was established in November 2011 with a $16 million U54 cooperative agreement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Center studies the drivers of the childhood obesity epidemic and environmental and policy interventions. Based at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Center works with scientists from many disciplines in collaboration with the NIH and 15 other institutions, including faculty from five Johns Hopkins schools, namely Whiting School of Engineering, School of Medicine, School of Nursing and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
According to the World Health Organization, worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980. In 2008, 1.5 billion adults aged 20 and older, were overweight or obese, and 65 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where overweight and obesity kill more people than underweight. Nearly 43 million children under age 5 were overweight in 2010. According to the CDC, childhood obesity in the U.S. has more than tripled in the last 30 years. In 2008, more than one-third of American children and adolescents were overweight or obese, which greatly increases the risk of obesity-related illnesses, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Prevention of obesity in children is a key to fighting the global epidemic.
Media contact: Tim Parsons, director of Public Affairs, at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.
