Limited-resource and minority families suffer disproportionately from obesity, which may be exacerbated for families living in disadvantaged, rural areas. Improvements in food choice and healthful eating are of critical importance in reducing the impact of obesity. Building on current work with community partners, our central hypothesis is that environmental exposures to conditions that facilitate or constrain food choice influence behaviors and limit healthful eating. Using a social-ecological approach, our overall goal is to examine the interplay of behavioral (individual and family) and environmental (home, social, and neighborhood/ community) factors, food choice, and healthful eating in limited-resource African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White families of seven rural Central Texas counties. Our interdisciplinary team will use a combination of multimethod and mixed methods designs - qualitative (key informant interviews, focus groups, participant observations, and in-depth interviews) and quantitative (comprehensive in-home survey of 969 adults) research methods and state-of-the art Geographic Information System (GIS) technology.
Our aims are to: (1) Evaluate the association of neighborhood characteristics (as measured by Census block group characteristics) with food environment quality (i.e., current food accessibility, variety, and cost of foods in local food stores), and to develop a geocoded database for food environmental risk assessment of minority or limited resource families in seven rural counties of the Brazos Valley (Burleson, Grimes, Leon, Madison, Robertson, Waller, and Washington counties). (2) Describe and interpret current family food strategies, as well as contextual factors, such as physical (home and neighborhood) and social environment, cultural patterns, community infrastructure, and current family food behaviors, in a purposeful sample of lowincome African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White families in the seven counties. (3) Evaluate the interplay of behavioral (individual and family) and address-specific environmental (home, social, and neighborhood/ community) factors, food choice, and healthful eating in a representative sample of 969 African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White adults in the seven counties. This will contribute to understanding the extent to which behavioral and environmental factors interact to influence healthful eating, which will facilitate the targeting of effective policy and programmatic changes into the community setting.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 48 publications
