Project game on!: empowering urban children to engage in healthy behaviors to reduce obesity risk through an interactive digital comic tool - popcom health seeks to design and develop an…

The National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities awarded Popcom Health Inc. $1,189,815 on September 18, 2025, under the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research program (CFDA 93.307) to design and develop an interactive, customizable digital health promotion comic tool for Black/African American and Latino preadolescents to reduce childhood obesity risk.

The recipient will create a family-centered, web-based intervention tool targeting low-income urban children. The tool builds on a prior R21 feasibility pilot study in which children receiving the comic intervention demonstrated statistically significant improvements in health behaviors compared to control participants. The intervention addresses childhood obesity as a public health priority among minority populations, where prevalence remains elevated and health consequences include increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer, and poor academic performance.

Work is performed in Medford, Massachusetts, with a period of performance through June 30, 2027. This is a Project Grant award supporting applied research and product development to reduce health disparities in minority populations.

Project game on!: empowering urban children to engage in healthy behaviors to reduce obesity risk through an interactive digital comic tool - popcom health seeks to design and develop an interactive, customizable digital health promotion comic tool for black/african american (AA) and latino preadolescents to reduce childhood obesity (OB) risk. Childhood OB continues to be a serious public health issue in the US, with economic, physical, and psychosocial consequences. Over the last three decades, the rate of childhood OB has tripled, with more than one-third of 6 to 19-year old children now considered having overweight or OB, with high rates in low-income groups. This epidemic has profound consequences leading to adverse health outcomes, such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, and increased risk of adult morbidity and mortality. OB can detrimentally impact children's social and emotional well-being and has been associated with poor academic performance. To help improve the health of future generations, effective and engaging interventions are needed to capture children's attention in a multi-media environment. We have created a family-centered, interactive, web-based health promotion comic tool focused on reducing childhood OB risk in low-income black/AA and latino pre-adolescents under an R21 study funded by the agency for healthcare research and quality (ahrq). Results of a 6-week intervention pilot feasibility study were encouraging: the tool was feasible to deliver and acceptable to the child and parent populations, and children receiving the comic tool demonstrated more significant improvements (p