The following study aims at deconstructing school wellness policies in the San Diego County, US border region to identify specific barriers, strategies, and recommendations that would help improve the cultural competence of these local policies. This is an effort to make these policies more effective at preventing childhood obesity among Latino populations. In order to achieve this a translational framework and the Social Ecological Model were used to connect research to policy to local community needs. The study was informed by interviews with 8 Latino childhood obesity research in Mexico/US, as well as 7 school health professional and school administrators in San Diego county (n=15). The interviews identified three themes to improving cultural competency in school wellness policies: (1) direct communication and involvement of the family unit, (2) accessibility to policies and resources in Spanish, and (3) community engagement in physical activity efforts. In accordance with each theme, barriers and strategies to implementation were identified, as well as concrete policy recommendations for school districts. Additionally, these themes were used as variables to analyze the current level of cultural competence in school wellness policies within San Diego County. From 19 qualifying school districts, only one was found to be cultural competent for Latinos in San Diego County. Clearly, this calls for an approach of these federally mandated policies that focuses on the local needs of communities.
