We are pleased to share that Dr. Tatalovich and National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) member Dr. David Berrigan’s HHSinnovates nomination – “Updated Urban Sprawl Data for the United States: Better data describing changes in urban form over time will strengthen evidence for the role of the built environment in access to health services and as an influence on obesity and health” – has been selected as a semi-finalist in Round 7 of the HHSinnovates program and will advance to the next phase of the competition—Health and Human Services (HHS) community voting. From April 7-25, HHS employees are invited to review this round’s semifinalists and help choose the best.
If you are an HHS employee, you can go on its intranet to read about the nomination (and vote) here or here. Please note that these links will only work for HHS employees.
Since Drs. Tatlovich and Berrigan submitted the nomination, the new data resource has been released, and a data release webinar was held with 500+ attendees. David also participated in a web chat.
You can also learn more in a recent paper by the research team: Relationship between urban sprawl and physical activity, obesity, and morbidity – update and refinement.
The evaluation committee received over 60 innovation nominations this round. Out of that pool, it advanced 18 nominations that it believes best exemplify the spirit and goals of the HHSinnovates competition. During previous rounds, over 10,000 votes have been cast by HHS employees, meaning that all semi-finalists received broad exposure across the department.
Based on the HHS community input, six finalists will advance to the next round where their nominations will be presented to Secretary Sebelius and other senior department members. All of the finalists will be invited to an award ceremony in Washington, DC, at which the Secretary’s top three picks will be announced and the entire event broadcasted to HHS.