Long-term solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic will require concerted interdisciplinary
efforts that are sensitive to both individual and social determinants of health. The
Junior Doctors of Health© (JDOH) program involves interprofessional education (IPE)
with university students from health science fields (e.g., medicine, pharmacy, social
work, public health) who deliver an interactive program in teams to at-risk school-aged
youth. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of participation in the
JDOH IPE program on university students’ beliefs about childhood obesity. Fifty-three
of the 71 health sciences students enrolled in the JDOH IPE program between 2011 and
2013 participated in this study. Pre- and post-surveys assessed students’ beliefs
about the importance, causes of, and responsibility for reducing childhood obesity
with both closed- and open-ended questions. In 2013, quantitative data were analyzed
using Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank tests and qualitative data were analyzed
through open coding to identify emergent themes. Results indicate that after participation
in the JDOH IPE program, students’ identification of social and environmental causes
of childhood obesity increased significantly. Further, students’ ranking of the importance
of obesity was initially higher than those of different issues typically portrayed
as social or environmental (e.g., youth violence) but it was similarly ranked after
participation in JDOH. This suggests a greater sensitivity to social and environmental
challenges faced by youth. Findings suggest that IPE experiences that bring clinical
and community-oriented health professions together to engage with disadvantaged youth
foster sensitivity to the complexities of childhood obesity in low-income settings.
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Published online: February 11, 2016
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© 2016 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by American Journal of Preventive Medicine All rights reserved.
