“We just don’t make it easy for people to be healthy in the United States,” says Dr. Andrea Nederveld.

That’s why Nederveld, a University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine assistant professor and researcher, is acting as a principal investigator on a research project which aims to find what works best in primary care settings to deliver effective weight management care to patients.

Helping Our Patients Engage (HOPE) in weight management is a three-year implementation study funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

“The reason for this is that people would like their primary care clinics or providers to address weight management more – but, historically, that been a challenge for many reasons including how to get paid to do it,” says Nederveld.

Here’s how the study breaks down:

1. Working with 30 practices across the country (most are in Colorado)

2. Providing two approaches to provided weight management in primary care

• Individual visits with a clinician or a health coach
• Or doing group visits and education

3. Practices get to choose which of those two approaches they wish to use

4. HOPE provides training, support, and materials to get started

5. HOPE evaluates progress and compares successes

Training starts immediately with practices and includes – the introduction to program, goals and objectives, weight related stigma, setting stage for this to be a health intervention and not so much a quick-fix weight loss solution.

Patient recruitment begins in early 2024.

Nederveld says she hopes that the HOPE primary care study can find the sweet spot for weight management delivery that fits into busy primary care practices, reaches more people and helps them become healthier.

“We’re really promoting this as something that something that you can use along with other medical interventions such as medication to really help people make those long-term changes that will help them maintain healthy habits.”

Editor’s Note:
Working alongside Nederveld are DFM co-PI Jodi Holtrop, and DFM co-I’s Bonnie Jortberg, Russ Glasgow and Seth Kramer.