Child/adolescent obesity is one of the most pressing public health problems today;it disproportionately affects Hispanic and Black children/adolescents as well as those living in poverty. Lack of physical activity and poor diet are well-documented contributors to child/adolescent obesity and reflect these same disparities. Environmental contexts may provide new answers to the origins of these disparities. Though recent studies have begun to elucidate the influence of neighborhoods on child/adolescent weight and weight related behaviors, schools remain an understudied environmental context. My long-range goal is to increase understanding of the impact of schools on the health of children/adolescents and their potential contribution to racial/ethnic and/or socioeconomic disparities. Coupled with this goal is my desire to build relationships between clinicians, researchers, and policy makers so that empirical findings can be translated into effective interventions. My career development plan proposes additional training and mentorship in three areas critical to my development as an independent researcher: (1) population health sciences, including the social determinants of health (social epidemiology), demographic theory and methods, sociology (urban sociology, neighborhood influences, and social stratification), and economics;(2) advanced methods needed to analyze contextual influences on health (multi-level analysis, multi-equation models, sociometric analysis), as well as methods to address causal inference;and (3) substantive understanding of the role of macro-social forces, such as educational opportunities, on health. My research plan includes 3 aims: (1) To determine the extent to which school factors contribute to racial/ethnic differences in individual dietary intake;(2) To determine the extent to which school factors contribute to racial/ethnic and/or socioeconomic differences in individual physical activity and weight trajectories from adolescence to adulthood;and (3) To simultaneously examine the influence of school context and two other potentially influential contexts-peer networks and neighborhood environments-on physical activity and weight gain trajectories. The career development plan will provide the training necessary to support an R01 application toward the end of this proposed award period and the research proposed will lay the ground work for identifying school-based interventions that can reverse the obesity epidemic and eliminate disparities.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Scientist Development Award - Research & Training (K01)
Project #
5K01HD058042-03
Application #
7913027
Study Section
Pediatrics Subcommittee (CHHD)
Program Officer
King, Rosalind B
Project Start
2008-09-29
Project End
2013-08-31
Budget Start
2010-09-01
Budget End
2011-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$125,820
Indirect Cost
Name
Children's Hospital Boston
Department
Type
DUNS #
076593722
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Richmond, Tracy K; Dunn, Erin C; Milliren, Carly E et al. (2016) Disentangling overlapping influences of neighborhoods and schools on adolescent body mass index. Obesity (Silver Spring) 24:2570-2577
Dunn, Erin C; Milliren, Carly E; Evans, Clare R et al. (2015) Disentangling the relative influence of schools and neighborhoods on adolescents' risk for depressive symptoms. Am J Public Health 105:732-40
Dunn, Erin C; Richmond, Tracy K; Milliren, Carly E et al. (2015) Using cross-classified multilevel models to disentangle school and neighborhood effects: an example focusing on smoking behaviors among adolescents in the United States. Health Place 31:224-32
Peterson, Karen E; Spadano-Gasbarro, Jennifer L; Greaney, Mary L et al. (2015) Three-Year Improvements in Weight Status and Weight-Related Behaviors in Middle School Students: The Healthy Choices Study. PLoS One 10:e0134470
Richmond, T K; Thurston, I; Sonneville, K et al. (2015) Racial/ethnic differences in accuracy of body mass index reporting in a diverse cohort of young adults. Int J Obes (Lond) 39:546-8
Richmond, Tracy K; Milliren, Carly; Walls, Courtney E et al. (2014) School social capital and body mass index in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. J Sch Health 84:759-68
Richmond, Tracy K; Elliott, Marc N; Franzini, Luisa et al. (2014) School programs and characteristics and their influence on student BMI: findings from healthy passages. PLoS One 9:e83254
Richmond, Tracy K; Spadano-Gasbarro, Jennifer L; Walls, Courtney E et al. (2013) Middle school food environments and racial/ethnic differences in sugar-sweetened beverage consumption: findings from the Healthy Choices study. Prev Med 57:735-8
Richmond, Tracy K; Walls, Courtney E; Subramanian, S V (2013) The association of adolescent socioeconomic position and adult height: variation across racial/ethnic groups. Econ Hum Biol 11:178-84
Richmond, Tracy K; Austin, S Bryn; Walls, Courtney E et al. (2012) The association of body mass index and externally perceived attractiveness across race/ethnicity, gender, and time. J Adolesc Health 50:74-79.e2

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