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The center works with communities to create community gardens, playgrounds, and shared spaces for healthy living.

What began 15 years ago as a federally funded research, training and outreach program has grown into an uplifting public health movement across the Pacific. The Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL), based at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, is celebrating a decade and a half of pioneering work in childhood nutrition, health, and community empowerment.

The center launched in 2011 with a $25 million USDA grant to create partnerships and build capacity across the region. Since then, it has worked with communities to improve the health and nutrition of thousands of children in Hawaiʻi, Alaska, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Freely Associated States in Micronesia.

The Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence has been improving keiki and family health since 2011. Putting communities first

“Our whole philosophy is really around promoting health and finding things that work, to always focus on the positive,” said Rachel Novotny, director of CHL. “The real work is with people: collaborating with communities on new playgrounds, adopting new policies about what kinds of foods are in schools, and working with kids on how to garden and grow their own fruits and vegetables, for example.”

A signature of CHL‘s impact is its one-of-a-kind dashboard and data repository online. National health surveys often overlook Hawaiʻi and the remote Pacific jurisdictions; the center stepped in to track data on children’s diets, physical activity and early physical signs of conditions like prediabetes.

A global success story

CHL has accomplished something rare: proven success in lowering childhood obesity. Participating communities saw a 4% drop in child overweight and obesity rates during the two-year program compared to non-participating areas. Six years later, that difference widened to 12%, showing the program’s long-term power.

The program has also become a centerpiece for mentoring and professional development for community health. Former CHL staffers and students now serve as deans, directors and lead researchers throughout the Pacific and the world, multiplying the positive impact on global food security.

CTAHR Dean Parwinder Grewal noted, “This is a remarkable example of a collaborative innovation success story, where CTAHR faculty have taken an impactful, community-based and data-driven approach to address nutritional security challenges in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. I commend Rachel for her leadership in building such a broad coalition to conduct place-based research while also training the future workforce.”

“One of our advisors said to me, ‘You know, Rachel, this isn’t so much a research trial anymore, it’s a movement,’” Novotny said. “I considered that a positive thing. It’s true that we’re after real societal change, and I think we have been able to accomplish that because of the people and the communities.”