January 9, 2018
National Day of Action to Call for CHIP Funding
Contact Senate and Congressional Representatives Wednesday, January 10th

Funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired at the end of September 2017. Congress delayed their decision on a long-term extension for CHIP before leaving town for the holidays, instead providing $2.85 billion in temporary relief for states through March 31, 2018. Presently, it is unclear how long these temporary funds - combined with any remaining carry-over funding or redistribution funding - will actually last for each state. Some states have announced that the new funding will only buy them an additional few weeks and are still moving forward with plans to terminate their programs. It is imperative that Congress passes a long-term funding extension of CHIP immediately.

More than 6 million of our nation's children are covered by this critical program and states will run out of funding soon.  Our patients and their families are at risk. There is bipartisan support for CHIP, and policymakers in both the U.S. House and Senate agree that the program and many of its critical elements should be extended for five years.  

Ensuring that families have equitable access to health care, where they can receive much needed information that is important for obesity prevention remains a priority for our Consortium. With CHIP, the uninsured rate of U.S. children has been at an all-time low with 95% of children covered .
 
If you would like to make your voice heard about the importance of CHIP, there is a day of action planned for tomorrow, January 10th.
 
Wednesday morning, please click below to send electronic letters to both Illinois Senators and your U.S. Representative.  Enter your information and send the pre-written letter. You also can personalize the letter to state why protecting CHIP is important to you. 




Moving Forward in the Fight Against Childhood Obesity
A New Year's Message from CLOCC Executive Director Adam Becker, PhD, MPH
 
Reflecting on CLOCC's 15th 
year, it was a whirlwind of successes and challenges for the field of childhood obesity prevention and for all those who fight for our children's healthy futures. In 2017, both political discourse and administrative actions (or inactions!) were enough to overwhelm any public health advocate. Yet, here in Chicago, our obesity prevention community stayed the course, fighting for the improvements in our neighborhoods, institutions, and local and state policies that help kids to lead active and healthy lives.  
 
As our consortium continues to make progress in healthy lifestyle education, environmental change, and local and statewide advocacy, we have the opportunity to look further "upstream" to some of the more fundamental root causes of obesity in an effort to identify the next wave of obesity prevention strategies. This opportunity coincides with heightened local and national attention to health equity and social determinants of health such as immigration, education, poverty and racism. All of these deeply debated social constructs have an impact on health and on people's ability to eat healthy and be active where they live, work, learn, and play. CLOCC staff and leadership groups (the Executive Committee and External Advisory Board) have been discussing strategies we might deploy to help us as a collective consider how we can expand our obesity prevention focus to include these important factors. We know that many of you already concentrate on solving some of these critical public health issues and we are excited to work with both new and existing partners to understand and explore how these social determinants of health and obesity can be identified and addressed at all levels. 
 
As we look to the future, I would also like to reflect on our Consortium's recent accomplishments. I draw strength and inspiration from the progress that we have made together and I hope you will as well. As always, CLOCC staff is humbled and proud of all we have done together in the past 15 years. 
JOB POSTINGS
5-4-3-2-1 Go! Resources
fiveSMART Resources
CHILDHOOD OBESITY IN THE NEWS

T he Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) is a nationally recognized leader for community-based obesity prevention. We support, coordinate, and unite partners to promote healthy and active lifestyles for children and families. Our multi-sector approach emerged in Chicago and can be adapted for use anywhere.