In 2011, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) appropriated funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct four-year community-based Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD) projects in three communities. Supporting underserved children aged 2 to 12 years and their families who are eligible for the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), CORD used the Obesity Chronic Care Model as a conceptual framework and built on an array of existing federal and non-federal initiatives. The National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR) served in an advisory capacity during the project development and application phases.
The four-year projects were designed to cover multiple levels of the socioecological model by combining efforts from pediatric health care settings, early care and education centers, and community venues such as retail food stores and parks. When the project concluded in 2015, CDC and the grantees synthesized the project’s findings and provided recommendations about effective, sustainable and cost-effective strategies to prevent obesity among underserved children. Childhood Obesity also released a special issue on CORD including nine articles and an accompanying editorial. More information can be found in the CORD Report to Congress, released in 2019.
In 2015, the CDC received additional funds and developed CORD 2.0 to implement family-centered pediatric weight management programs for low-income children aged 6 to 12. The CDC is developing CORD 3.0 to package effective weight management programs to be shared and implemented with partners that serve low-income children.