Recruiting

BHF ResourcesScaling up Building Healthy Families

Sponsor:

University of Utah

Code:

NCT07404839

Conditions

Obesity, Child

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 5+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Building Healthy Families Program

Study Details

Brief summary:

Evidence-based interventions for childhood obesity (EBI-CO) can improve children's weight status, but families in rural areas and small cities have limited access to the interdisciplinary healthcare teams recommended to deliver EBI-CO. To address this issue, the investigators adapted an EBI-CO, Building Healthy Families (BHF), which includes all materials and training resources necessary for rural program implementation. The pilot study found that when paired with opportunities to learn from the program developers and other community implementation teams, the packaged program led to effective delivery across 4 rural communities. This scale-up study will compare packaged BHF Resources with and without a learning collaborative facilitation strategy, examining outcomes including reach, effectiveness, implementation, and potential for sustainability in rural areas.

Conditions

Obesity, Child

Study ID

NCT07404839

Start date

Nov 1, 2025

Status verified date

Jun, 2026

Completion date

Jun 30, 2030

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Jan 1, 2030

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 5+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Communities must respond to a call for proposals by submitting a letter of intent and a brief narrative describing the local need for BHF and readiness for implementation. Community eligibility for this trial includes:

Any community is eligible to apply for the competitive BHF RFA process;
BHF RFA scoring prioritizes community narratives that meet the following criteria: (1)Childhood obesity prevention and treatment are a priority health concern; (2) Communities and community-based organizations located in rural, frontier, or micropolitan areas, and/or that provide services to families from these areas; (3) Communities and community-based organizations that provide services or reach families in other low-resource contexts, such as areas with limited access to evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention/treatment interventions.
The community is willing to be randomized to either study condition.
The community is willing to form a Community Implementation Team (CIT) to implement BHF.

Eligibility for Community Implementation Teams (CIT) includes:

Adults, age 18 years or older
Employed by or affiliated with the community-based organizations that applied and were selected through the bundled adoption strategy (i.e., LOI/RFA) process.

BHF Program Family Eligibility:

Must have at least one child between the ages of 5 and 13 years with a BMI at or above the 85th percentile;
One parent or caregiver must agree to attend BHF sessions with the child.

Study Design

Enrollment

150 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Prevention

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

active comparator: Building Healthy Families (BHF) Program Resources Package Only (BHF-PO)

The BHF Program Resources include an online train-the-trainer system, program materials, and a data portal for use by community-based implementation teams. Communities randomized to the BHF Program Resources Package Only (BHF-PO) study condition will have access to the online train-the-trainer system, program materials, and a data portal for use by community-based implementation teams. Community-based implementation teams (CITs) will use the BHF Program Resources to train and deliver the BHF Program to families in their community.

experimental: Building Healthy Families Learning Collaborative (BHF-LC).

Communities randomized to the BHF-LC study condition have access to BHF Program Resources and enhanced training through the learning collaborative facilitation strategy. Community Implementation Team (CIT) members in this study condition will participate in the learning collaborative, which consists of quarterly virtual learning sessions (8 total), over a two-year period. In between learning sessions, each BHF-LC CIT will have a 1-hour 1:1 action period meeting with the research team.

Community-based implementation teams (CITs) will use the BHF Program Resources to train and deliver the BHF Program to families in their community.

Interventions

Building Healthy Families Program

Building Healthy Families (BHF) is an evidence-based, family-based weight management program designed for children aged 5-13 who are overweight or obese and their parents or caregivers. Family-based weight management programs focus on creating a supportive, positive environment for lifestyle behavior change that promotes healthy growth and development. BHF is a group-based program, and education sessions focus on healthy eating, physical activity, and lifestyle modification for the entire family. The BHF Program consists of 12 weekly education sessions (\~2 hours each) and 6 relapse-prevention refresher sessions over 1 year (12 months total). The BHF program meets the current recommendations for intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment (IHBLT) programs from professional groups, and BHF is a recommended program for community adoption and implementation.

Primary outcome measure

Implementation Fidelity (community level) [ Time Frame: From BHF session initiation to the end of sessions (~ 12 months) for one cohort in each enrolled community. ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

BHF Program Coordinator

308.520.7580 bhf@nebraska.edu

Jennie Hill, PhD

801-646-6008 jennie.hill@hsc.utah.edu

Locations

University of Utah

Recruiting

Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 84108

Contacts

Grace Youn

(801) 581-7642 grace.youn@hsc.utah.edu

More Information

Sponsor

University of Utah

Last update posted

Jun 10, 2026

Last verified

Jun, 2026

Keywords

rural
implementation strategies
family based program
dissemination and implementation science
lifestyle change intervention
family based programs

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-09. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of Utah on 2026-06-10.