Field Placement: LA County Department of Public Health: Maternal, Child, and Adolscent Health Program
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Preceptor: Eleanor Long
Student Name: Jacqueline Torres
Year: 2008

I completed my internship between June and September, 2008 at the Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Programs (MCAH) division of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. My project, “Overcoming Barriers to Healthy Weight Among Women of Reproductive Age” provided me with experience in health education, health communication and the creation of culturally competent materials and programs. Specifically, I created a brochure in Spanish for low-income Latinas to address common barriers to achieving a healthy weight, including lack of time to exercise and family preferences for high fat, traditional foods, among many others. I pretested this brochure with Spanish-speaking WIC clients at a WIC center in metropolitan Los Angeles (n = 46). The results of the project were written up as a poster and a manuscript to be submitted for publication.

My preceptor, Eleanor Long, MSPH is the health education coordinator for MCAH and currently oversees the Healthy Weight for Women of Reproductive Age Action Learning Collaborative (HWWALC). The HWWALC brings together health care providers, community-based organizations, university professors and programs and personnel from other programs within LADPH to promote healthy weight amongst women of reproductive age.  The climbing rates of overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age, and the implications for perinatal health, has meant that the promotion of healthy weight is a priority for public health at national and local levels. The creation of materials promoting healthy weight can be an important starting point, and is the current priority for the HWWALC. Efforts to promote healthy weight should also go beyond the development of messaging to help overcome barriers at all levels—from individual to environmental. 

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