The JumpStart Model
"JumpStart Pierre Part" is an ongoing partnership between Tulane University and the community of Pierre Part, Louisiana, which unites the medical and public health communities, local, regional, and national government, schools, businesses, and families. The goal of the initiative is to inspire and support a culture of community health and wellness. This is accomplished by fostering educational, environmental, and policy changes that become incorporated into Pierre Part and then maintained by Pierre Part community leaders.
The "JumpStart Pierre Part" initiative works through several different outlets to inspire change. First, JumpStart engages Pre-K and Kindergarten students in classroom interventions that involve school teachers, school staff (PE, Art, and Music teachers), the principal, and parents. These classroom interventions expose students to daily education about nutrition and exercise. Healthy snack options are provided regularly and students participate in week-long "monthly challenges" (e.g. "Eat a Rainbow" Week or "Healthy Hearts" Week) that encourage them to adopt healthier behaviors. Parents are asked to assist their children in meeting these challenges, in completing JumpStart-related worksheets, and in providing healthier snacks to the entire class; recipes, health tips, and other wellness information are sent home with the students with the hopes of creating educational and behavioral changes not only among the students, but also among their family members to generate a "conversation of health" within the family. JumpStart has also incorporated LSU AgCenter's SmartBodies program into the school, an interactive educational program designed to help prevent childhood obesity. SmartBodies teaches kids about how the body works and allows the kids to walk through life-size displays of the ears, the heart, the lungs, and other body parts. Additionally, through JumpStart, students have created a vegetable garden and are maintaining and eating the vegetables as they grow. While the primary focus is on Pre-K and Kindergarten students, the school principal is encouraging expansion to other grades.
Secondly, JumpStart extends beyond the classroom and the students" families to engage the larger Pierre Part community. In addition to teaching kids and parents about "green light" foods (the "go" foods to eat frequently), "yellow light" foods (the "have caution" foods to eat occasionally) and "red light" foods (the "stop and think" foods to eat rarely), JumpStart has taken this message to the grocery store: healthy items have been labeled with "green lights," making it easier for customers to purchase healthy foods. This point-of-purchase prompt "green light" labeling system has been tied to other community health events, including the monthly Nutrition Seminar Series, the local newspaper, a website, school snacks, breakfasts, and lunches and the Larrison Family Health Center. A monthly Nutrition Seminar Series is held the second Tuesday of each month to provide nutrition information and teach participants how to prepare healthy, tasty meals that utilize locally available foods while offering samples of healthy recipes. Many of the topics ("good fats/bad fats," "eating a high fiber diet," etc.) teach people to choose the healthy "green light" foods in the grocery store. The weekly local paper, The Bayou Journal, also features articles on nutrition, encouraging readers to choose healthy "green light" foods. Additionally, it features stories on fitness and covers all ongoing JumpStart events. A "JumpStart" website serves a similar role by creating a space where all community members can learn about and exchange health information and recipes and physicians can post health tips for patients. JumpStart also joins in the annual Pierre Part Health Fair and Food Fest to provide information and food samples that encourage healthy living.
In addition to creating an environment that makes it easier to choose healthy foods, JumpStart has helped spur environmental change to increase opportunities for physical activity in Pierre Part. In partnership with the Pierre Part/Belle River Recreation Board, JumpStart has helped create a walking path in the local park. While kids play on the playground or play baseball or tennis, their parents and family members can walk around the park. Sidewalks have also recently been paved along the main road coursing through Pierre Part, making it easier and safer for community members to exercise. JumpStart also sponsored a 5 K Walk/Run and hopes to sponsor more in the future.
Thirdly, JumpStart is working at a policy level to improve current nutritional programs both within the school system and the community at-large. Specifically, by partnering with the school nutritionist breakfast and lunch menus have begun to incorporate healthier meals within the framework of available options, such as whole wheat items, low-fat milk, and more fruits and vegetables. JumpStart also sponsors "taste-tests" with the kids to determine what healthy foods they enjoy and would like incorporated into their meals. JumpStart hopes to eventually target the Meals on Wheels program to provide healthier home-delivered meals. Other policy changes will be initiated as the need arises and as members of the JumpStart Team feel inspired to tackle specific policies that will generate healthy changes.
Finally, the "JumpStart Pierre Part" initiative creates an educational environment for Tulane University students. In partnership with medical professionals within the Larrison Family Health Center in Pierre Part and the Teche Action Clinic in Franklin, Louisiana, medical students have the opportunity to be part of a unique model of health care delivery that integrates both medicine and public health to optimize patient care within a rural community. Medical students work in the local primary care clinic. At the same time, they assist in daily JumpStart initiatives by incorporating their own unique ideas and passions into the community collaboration. JumpStart thus exposes students to primary care and preventive medicine, increasing the likelihood that students will choose to become primary care physicians, a much needed segment of the healthcare workforce. Since primary care physicians have been proven to provide better health outcomes at lower costs, they are in great demand. Of the initial medical students who rotated through the Larrison Family Health Clinic and engaged in JumpStart activities, all six have chosen to enter primary care.
In partnership with the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (SPHTM), JumpStart also engages Tulane public health student, who monitor and evaluate JumpStart initiatives. Both medical and public health students have performed qualitative analyses on cultural and behavioral change and quantitative analyses on the grocery store sales trends, as well as kap studies evaluating knowledge, attitude, and behavior changes about nutrition and physical activity among community members.
A new and exciting partnership between JumpStart, Guiding Stars, and Associated Grocers promises to expand JumpStart's impact on the community and create a more rigorous monitoring and evaluating system. Guiding Stars is a professional labeling company that highlights the healthiest foods with "good," "better," and "best" labels in a three-star system. Their methodology is based on a scientific algorithm that promotes the healthiest nutrients and discourages the less healthy nutrients. By professionally labeling the store and widely publicizing it (through large store posters and displays), Guiding Stars can help increase customer's use of the labeling system. And, by partnering with Associated Grocers, they can track the sales trends in the store to determine if JumpStart initiatives are creating true behavioral change (ie purchasing healthy foods). For example, if a lesson is given in Pierre Part Elementary about high fiber cereals, AG and Guiding Stars can then track sales changes in these high-fiber cereals in the grocery store. Similarly, if brown rice is promoted over processed white rice in the Nutrition Seminar Series, JumpStart will be able to determine if the sales of brown rice then increase. This offers important data on the effectiveness of tying a point-of-purchase prompt labeling system to a community-wide nutrition campaign to promote healthy behavior change. If proven effective, this model of health promotion could be replicated in other AG stores across the state. On the horizon, JumpStart hopes to perform more professional qualitative analysis to evaluate culture change and create a documentary to profile the community and show the impact of the JumpStart project.
By creating a sustainable model of community-wide health and wellness, we hope to prove JumpStart's success and replicate it in other communities. JumpStart has already had several opportunities to share this model with other communities: JumpStart presented our model to both Winsborro in Northern Louisiana and Terrebonne General Hospital in Morgan City, both of which are looking to a adopt a JumpStart-like program. JumpStart has also been invited to present at the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine (STFM) conference, to the Louisiana Obesity Council, to the state's Rural Caucus, and two JumpStart members recently won a Mayo Clinic essay contest in which they portrayed JumpStart and the importance of primary care as a way to reform medical education. JumpStart has also recently been invited to present to the National School Board Association.
JumpStart is excited to welcome a new group of fifteen medical students who have made a longitudinal commitment to help steer and shape JumpStart based on their passions and the community's needs. They will work hand in hand with the group of volunteers who currently form the local JumpStart infrastructure and sustain JumpStart activities, including members of the Nutrition Subcommittee, the School Subcommittee, the Grocery Store Subcommittee, and the Fitness Subcommittee. JumpStart Pierre Part will continually be molded and tailored to address community needs, and its success thus relies on enthusiastic community feedback and involvement. There are no limitations on what can or will be done when the collective goal is to create a place where community members take an active role in improving their own health and wellness.