Results from the Greenlight Plus Study were recently published in JAMA, demonstrating that adding a digital component to pediatric counseling could effectively reduce obesity in children. Conducted across two PCORnet® Clinical Research Networks, INSIGHT and STAR, the study involved families from a variety of backgrounds.
Study Highlights and Key Findings
The JAMA publication Effectiveness of a Digital Childhood Obesity Prevention Intervention Combined with Pediatric Health Behavior Counseling describes how the study enrolled 900 parent-infant pairs across six U.S. medical centers, following them for two years. Researchers compared two approaches:
- Standard health behavior counseling at routine pediatric visits (the Greenlight Intervention)
- Combined counseling and tailored digital intervention (the Greenlight Plus Intervention), featuring personalized text messages and a web-based dashboard.
At the end of the 24-month period, results showed the digital intervention group showed a significant reduction in early obesity markers compared to the counseling-only group. Specifically, the children who received the digital intervention achieved:
- Lower average weight-for-length trajectory
- 41% lower obesity rate (7.4% vs. 12.7% in counseling only group)
The findings suggest a combined digital and clinical approach can play a role in promoting healthy growth patterns in early childhood, especially for those at higher risk of obesity due to socioeconomic factors.
PCORnet® Infrastructure Enables Success
This PCORnet® Study tapped into the extensive resources and collaborative framework provided by the PCORnet infrastructure, which played a crucial role in providing:
- The PCORnet® Common Data Model for streamlined data harmonization
- Single IRB process for expedited multi-site
- Standardized, yet efficient data collection methods
- Patient-centered implementation framework
These helped the study team successfully implement a digital health intervention at scale while addressing public health challenges.
Learn more about conducting research through PCORnet at the PCORnet® Front Door.