Suchergebnisse

The community of Huntington, an Appalachian city in West Virginia with the highest overdose rate in the nation, participated as an Innovation Community in a grant funded Community Assessment and Education to Promote Behavioral Health Planning and Evaluation (CAPE II) project. Activities entailed designing and implementing an innovative, replicable, and sustainable early warning protocol that addressed a locally determined set of community behavioral health issues. Using 192 publicly available indicators tracked for a year throughout 12 geographic neighborhoods, the authors developed an early warning system and analyzed relationships between key indicators and substance overdose and arrests. Community interventions were designed to address these relationships from the perspective of social workers, law enforcement officers, and community members.

BACKGROUND: Increased intakes of ready-made and fast foods paralleled with decreased homemade food consumption have been associated with increased rates of obesity. Researchers have shown associations between cooking self-efficacy (SE) and cooking frequency (CF) with dietary quality and weight status. Some cooking interventions have shown positive associations with dietary outcomes, such as increased fruit and vegetable intake and decreased fast food consumption. There is still much unknown about SE and CF, especially among youth. OBJECTIVE: Determine baseline SE and CF and the associations with dietary quality and body mass index (BMI) of youth enrolled in iCook 4H. METHODS: Youth (n = 228, ages 9-10 years) completed online surveys assessing SE, CF, dietary quality, and demographics. Anthropometrics were collected to calculate BMI-for-age percentiles and weight categories. Descriptive statistics were completed for CF, SE, BMI categories, and demographics. Differences in CF and SE by sex, race, and participation in government assistance programs were determined through independent-sample t tests. Pearson correlations were used to assess the association between dietary quality and CF and SE. Associations between CF and dietary quality were assessed further through 2-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) that included CF and sex and CF and race as independent variables. Associations between SE and CF and BMI were assessed through ANOVAs. RESULTS: Thirty-seven percent of youth were overweight or obese. Females reported significantly higher CF than males (P = .042). Cooking frequency was positively associated with dietary quality (P < .001), but BMI was not associated with dietary quality. SE was not associated with dietary quality or BMI. CONCLUSION: Based on results, CF was positively associated with dietary quality among youth. More research is needed to assess how different types of cooking relate to diet and BMI. Interventions are needed to determine whether increasing CF leads to better diet outcomes.

Background: Increased intakes of ready-made and fast foods paralleled with decreased homemade food consumption have been associated with increased rates of obesity. Researchers have shown associations between cooking self-efficacy (SE) and cooking frequency (CF) with dietary quality and weight status. Some cooking interventions have shown positive associations with dietary outcomes, such as increased fruit and vegetable intake and decreased fast food consumption. There is still much unknown about SE and CF, especially among youth. Objective: Determine baseline SE and CF and the associations with dietary quality and body mass index (BMI) of youth enrolled in iCook 4H. Methods: Youth (n=228, ages 9-10 years) completed online surveys assessing SE, CF, dietary quality, and demographics. Anthropometrics were collected to calculate BMI-for-age percentiles and weight categories. Descriptive statistics were completed for CF, SE, BMI categories, and demographics. Differences in CF and SE by sex, race, and participation in government assistance programs were determined through independent-sample t tests. Pearson correlations were used to assess the association between dietary quality and CF and SE. Associations between CF and dietary quality were assessed further through 2-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) that included CF and sex and CF and race as independent variables. Associations between SE and CF and BMI were assessed through ANOVAs. Results: Thirty-seven percent of youth were overweight or obese. Females reported significantly higher CF than males (P=.042). Cooking frequency was positively associated with dietary quality (P < .001), but BMI was not associated with dietary quality. SE was not associated with dietary quality or BMI. Conclusion: Based on results, CF was positively associated with dietary quality among youth. More research is needed to assess how different types of cooking relate to diet and BMI. Interventions are needed to determine whether increasing CF leads to better diet outcomes.

Extension professionals must demonstrate organizational value to garner public awareness and support. Measuring and communicating outcomes that have public value can be challenging. In this study, Ripple Effects Mapping incorporating the Community Capitals Framework was used to evaluate a childhood obesity prevention study, iCook 4-H, of youth-adult pairs in Maine. The objective was to describe the process of generating impact statements through story threads about program benefits to the participants and the potential benefits to nonparticipants, such as family members, friends, and other community members. Extension professionals can use storylines, or story threads, as a qualitative research technique to generate stories about private and public value from participants' actions, experiences, and emotions following community programs. The story threads process can be used across disciplines to leverage community program data into public value messaging.

Purpose. This study evaluated the policy and built and recreation environmental supports for physical activity on 13 university campuses. Design. Environmental audit survey. Setting. Thirteen U.S. universities, 2009. Subjects. University policies, recreation programs and facilities, and at least five additional buildings per campus. Measures. The Physical Activity Campus Environmental Supports Audit was developed for this study. Analysis. Analysis of variance with post hoc Tukey's B and χ2 assessed differences by institution and building type. Results. The mean obesogenic policy score was significantly lower than the desired score, ≥ 7 (p = .002), with only one campus scoring 10. The mean built environment audit score (5.4 ± 1.7) was low, with significant differences between institutions (p < .001) and only three campuses scoring above the desired score, ≥ 7. Although generally stairwells were clean and well lighted, there was a lack of signage to encourage stair use (p < .001). Overall, recreation programs (7.1 ± .7) and facilities (7.1 ± 1.2) scored well, but amenities scores were lower for satellite (2.8 ± 1.6) versus main (4.1 ± 1.8) recreation facilities (p = .04). Conclusion. On these 13 university campuses, recreation programs and facilities were supportive of healthful lifestyles for obesity prevention, but policies and the built environment were not. This physical activity environmental audit survey requires testing in a wider sample of postsecondary institutions to corroborate its utility and provide evidence to support initiatives to improve campus environments for physical activity.