Church, Extension and Academic Partners Empowering Healthy Families

Summary

The project will address health disparities via a community-engaged approach in partnership with black churches. The long-term goals of this integrated project are to: 1) prevent and reduce childhood obesity through improved parenting practices and home environment related to obesity; 2) expand Extension capacity for community-engaged research and collaborative programming with faith-based organizations; 3) enhance Extension strategies for recruiting and training community volunteers to extend Extension reach; and 4) train future health professionals to provide culturally appropriate collaborative community-based health programs. The project will target the school-aged subset (ages 6-11, first through fifth grade) of the USDA target age range of ages 2-19. The 14-month randomized control trial design of the research component will generate new knowledge regarding effectiveness of a integrated family-based intervention enhanced with social and environmental (church) support to prevent obesity in school-aged children. The research design with a financial literacy active control condition and the primary nutrition and physical activity intervention being tested meets two needs expressed by the community partner and allows rigorous evaluation of both Extension programs. It is hypothesized that parents in the intervention group will have higher levels of self-efficacy for obesity-prevention behaviors, parenting practices related to food and physical activity, improved home food and physical activity. The long term impact is to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity.

Conditions

• Obesity

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Healthy Children, Healthy Families+ (HCHF+)

HCHF+ integrates healthful eating and physical activity with parenting education (parent role modeling and child feeding practices) and was recently shown to improve parent and child nutrition behaviors for participants in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education (EFNEP) program. OrganWise Guys (OWG) will be used for children in first and second grades (ages 6-8). Choose Health: Food, Fun and Fitness (CHFF), developed by Cornell University, will be used for children in grades three through five (ages 8-10). HCHF+ includes 9 sessions to be delivered weekly.

BEHAVIORAL

Money Smart

Money Smart is a financial literacy education program developed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Curricula are available for both adults and children.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Baptist General Convention of Virginia

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Virginia Cooperative Extension

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Virginia Family Nutrition Program

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Virginia Tech Center for Public Health Practice and Research

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

6 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-02-19

Primary Completion

2021-09-11

Completion

2021-09-11

Countries

• United States

Study Locations