Roberto P. Treviño

Roberto P. Treviño, M.D. founded the South Alamo Medical Group (SAMG) in 1986 for the practice of primary care medicine in poor and underserved areas. SAMG eventually became one of the larger medical practices in the city with six clinics and twenty-one primary care physicians. However, increasingly dissatisfied with medical outcomes, Dr. Treviño in 1991 founded the Social and Health Research Center, Inc. (SAHRC). In 1995, Dr. Treviño incorporated the SAHRC as a 501 c (3) nonprofit to design and evaluate early-age obesity and type 2 diabetes prevention programs. This effort lead in 1997 to the development of Bienestar/NEEMA Coordinated School Health Program (BN CSHP). Dr. Treviño is the principal investigator of the three largest randomized controlled trials funded by the NIH (National Institutes of Health NIDDK) to prevent obesity and diabetes in children. Implementation of Bienestar/NEEMA CSHP in schools remarkably was shown to decrease blood glucose and obesity rates in children. Dr. Treviño also presents in his book Forgotten Children: A True Story of How Politicians Endanger Children, a willful neglect of children’s health by the Texas Legislature. The book reports in detail how political influence by special interest groups operating within the halls and chambers of the Texas Capital attempted to derail the funding and dissemination of the BN CSHP, an evidence-based school health curriculum shown to control childhood obesity and youth-onset type 2 diabetes. These two chronic diseases in children continue to be at epidemic levels in the State of Texas. Bienestar/NEEMAN CSHP, nonetheless, continues to expand and holds a bright future in the fight against childhood obesity and related chronic disease.