Prevention in Focus

Webinar Series

Spreading Effective Interventions to Support Healthy Child Growth: CDC’s Data Modernization and Implementation Science Efforts

August 18, 2022
Headshot of Heidi Blanck, Ph.D.
Heidi Blanck, Ph.D.

Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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About the Webinar

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity (DNPAO) supports the use of timely data for decision making and spreading evidence-based interventions in both clinical and community settings to support healthy child growth. Dr. Heidi Blanck discusses recent data modernization efforts in the use of electronic health records and community data to advance child health programming and obesity prevention and management through population-health efforts. She also discusses data advances and implementation science frameworks that are being used to bring more proven interventions to venues that serve children from lower-income households. Dr. Blanck focuses on interventions that are acceptable to implementors and families, and that help address behavioral risk factors and social determinants of obesity. Highlighted resources include available statistical software resources, data governance models, privacy-preserving technology, and proof-of-concept collaborative applied research projects across the United States that can support healthy child growth.

About Heidi Blanck

Heidi Blanck, Ph.D., has more than 23 years of public health experience at the CDC, and has authored over 150 papers and reports in the areas of nutrition, physical activity, obesity, and environmental exposures. She has served as CDC’s Chief of Chronic Disease Nutrition and Obesity Prevention and Control for 12 years. Dr. Blanck supports teams working on national and state surveillance, applied research, guidelines, and technical assistance to support health and health equity through early childcare and education environments, healthy food service, clinical and community pediatric interventions to support child growth and health, and community efforts to support food and nutrition security. She supports agency research-practitioner partnerships including the Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN) and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), and serves as liaison to the National Academies Roundtable on Obesity Solutions. She received her Ph.D. in Nutrition and Health Science from Emory University and M.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan. She is an adjunct professor in Emory University’s Nutrition and Health Sciences Graduate Program.

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