Promoting Healthy Habits in Well-Child Visits: Advancing Weight-Neutral Health Promotion in Diverse Pediatric Populations

Integrating effective health behavior change discussions in childhood preventative medical visits is a challenging and important means to support families in the creation and maintenance of healthy habits over the lifespan. The 9-5-2-1-0 model is a tool to identify healthy habits and guide conversation at well-child visits in primary care. Diverse families in a family medicine residency clinic met with a member of the interprofessional team during preventive medical visits between July 2015-March 2020 to discuss current health habits and goal setting. Data were collected at follow up visits to determine whether patients who set goals made progress towards these goals. Seventy two percent of families who met with the team were willing to set a goal at the initial encounter. Of those who set a goal, 53% reported they had partially or fully attained these goals at follow up. The presence of an interpreter did not significantly impact willingness to set a goal, overall goal attainment or add to the length of the intervention. While there are limitations to this study design, the results suggest that an interprofessional 9-5-2-1-0 intervention offers a promising approach for engaging diverse families in health habit conversations and goal setting in primary care.