Healthy Kids, Healthy Cuba: findings from a group model building process in the rural Southwest.

Background: Healthy Kids, Healthy Cuba (HKHCuba) is 1 of 49 community partnerships that participated in the national Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. One method of evaluation was to introduce systems thinking at the community level by identifying the essential parts of the HKHCuba system and how it influences policy and environmental changes to promote healthy eating and active living as well as to prevent childhood obesity in this unique, triethnic, rural community in New Mexico.

Methods: In this cross-sectional design, 12 HKHCuba partners participated in a group model building (GMB) session to develop behavior over time graphs and a causal loop diagram.