Our vision 
Through the Southern Obesity Summit (SOS) we seek to:
  • Promote cross-sector collaboration and partnerships to prevent obesity
  • Provide opportunities for practitioners to share successful policy and community-based intervention strategies
  • Further develop and define a Southern Strategy to encourage effective inter-state initiatives and collaboration


SOS is the largest regional obesity prevention event in the United States, drawing hundreds of participants from the 16 Southern States consisting of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Together, these states are joining forces to fight obesity. The Southern Obesity Summit began with seed capital from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a spinoff project of the Southern Rural Access Program, a seven-year initiative to improve access to care. Texas Health Institute (THI) and Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) partnered to put on the inaugural SOS in Little Rock in 2007.   Since Little Rock(2007), SOS has been held in Birmingham, AL (2008); Austin, TX (2009); Atlanta, GA (2010);  New Orleans, LA (2011), Charlotte, NC (2012), Nashville, TN (2013), Louisville, KY (2014) and Jackson, MS (2015) , Houston TX (2016), Atlanta GA (2017), Charleston WV (2018), and we are going to Oklahoma City OK in October 2019. Since 2007, THI has led and served as the fiscal and administrative home, backbone, and convening partner for SOS. 
 

our approach

Advance Collaborative Action

The 13th Annual Southern Obesity Summit will take place October 28-30, 2019 in partnership with Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET) at the Renaissance Convention Center Hotel and Spa Downtown-Bricktown in Oklahoma City, OK.  This year’s theme is “Improving Systems to Promote Healthy People and Resilient Communities.” 

visit the sos website to learn more

Learn more about the Summit!
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