Health promotion schools of excellence: learning from the past to impact the future

In 1991, the Jefferson County Medical Society [now Greater Louisville Medical Society] developed a program designed to address many health issues facing the nation's schools. That program, Health Promotion Schools of Excellence (HPSE), has worked for the last 15 years to impact the health and physical fitness of school-aged children in Jefferson County while growing from 15 to 62 participating schools. Data collected from the HPSE program was analyzed in this study and suggests that the program may favorably impact the rate of childhood obesity among participating students. The epidemic of obesity continues to grow among Kentucky children and our findings would support the notion that the HPSE program should move toward a more standardized approach to prevent obesity, define more sophisticated metrics for success, and require consistent participation across all schools in a process that works in concert with the Coordinated School Health program supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.