PROVIDENCE – Rajiv Kumar, the Brown University medical student who co-founded the team-based wellness program Shape Up Rhode Island, has been named one of 10 recipients of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Community Health Leaders Award for 2009, the organization announced Thursday.

The annual award, now in its 16th year, honors “individuals who have overcome daunting odds to improve the health and quality of life for disadvantaged or underserved men, women and children across the United States,” the foundation said.

Kumar and his fellow Brown medical student, Brad Weinberg, founded the nonprofit Shape Up RI in 2005 to help people increase their activity levels in an effort to address the growing obesity epidemic in the state and nationally. Nearly 35,000 Rhode Islanders have participated in the program since its creation.

“As our leaders in Washington are working on national health reform, the 2009 Community Health Leaders have been addressing the shortcomings and challenges facing our nation’s health care system in their communities,” Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, the foundation’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

“These leaders are important pillars of their community and of the health care system, who have taken personal and professional risks to help the people in their communities live healthier, better lives,” Lavizzo-Mourey added.

Kumar and the other Community Health Leaders Award winners will receive $125,000, as well as networking opportunities and national attention. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the county’s largest health care philanthropy.

Kumar has received a number of awards from Providence Business News in recent years, most recently as the 2009 Innovation Awards’ Student Innovator of the Year. He was also one of the young leaders honored as part of the 40 Under Forty class of 2008.

Additional information is available at CommunityHealthLeaders.org.