Archive for March, 2012

San Antonio Restaurant Program Helping Latinos Get Healthy, Lose Weight

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1 year ago
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¡Por Vida!, launched in October 2010, is a San Antonio restaurant recognition program that aims to help adults and children make healthier food choices by identifying menu items that meet certain nutritional guidelines. The obesity prevention program is one arm of a larger city effort that implores residents to “Find Your Balance” and get healthy.

Since it started, a dozen restaurants have joined the program.

Watch these videos to see how San Antonio residents Pedro Garcia and Sylvia Niño are dropping pounds thanks to the program.

Apply: Healthy Eating Research Grants

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1 year ago
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Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) dedicated to research on environmental and policy strategies with strong potential to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity, is seeking proposals or two types of awards aimed at providing key decision-makers with evidence to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

Approximately $1.9 million will be given for the two award types.

Round 7 Grants

  •   About $1.7 million will be awarded through Round 7.
  • Each grant will award up to $170,000 for a maximum funding period of 18 months.
  • Concept papers may be submitted at any time until Aug. 9, 2012 (3 p.m. ET).

RWJF New Connections Grants Awarded Through Healthy Eating Research

  • These grants are to support the research of new investigators representing populations and communities historically underrepresented in childhood obesity prevention research, including researchers from underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities.
  • Up to two RWJF New Connections grants will be awarded through the Healthy Eating Research program in this round of funding.
  • Awards will be for 12- to 18-month grants of up to $100,000 each.
  • Deadline for receipt of concept papers: May 22, 2012 (3 p.m. ET)

For more info, go here.

Study: Immigrant Mothers Feel Powerless to Address Weight Problems

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1 year ago
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Editor’s Note: This is a 20-part series featuring new research briefs on Latino childhood obesity, nutrition, physical activity and more by the 20 grantees of Salud America! Part 20 is Dr. Miriam Vega. Find all briefs here.

Dr. Miriam Vega

Dr. Miriam Vega
“La Familia en la Cocina is Speaking Two Languages”

In her Salud America! pilot research project, Dr. Miriam Vega of the Latino Commission on AIDS in New York south interviewed Latina mothers and children to better understand their knowledge, attitudes and communication behaviors related to food consumption and preferences, as well as the built and cultural environments in which they make decisions.

Key preliminary findings include:

  • a large gap exists in the manner in which a mother and child communicate; and
  • many immigrant Latinas felt powerless to address weight issues.

This study suggests a need to focus on the Latino family unit and on programs that target the family members separately to account for differing communication styles. Children ages 10-12 are still bonding with their parents and still see their parents as role models. Yet Latina immigrant mothers may face a critical communication gap with their children, one they may feel powerless to overcome.

Social marketing efforts on nutrition and obesity may fail to recognize the Latina mother as a separate audience from the child—in terms of language, cultural values, etc., on food choices.

Read more here.

Salud America! is an RWJF national program directed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday.

EVENT: New Insights into Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

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1 year ago
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The 2012 International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Annual Meeting, set for May 23-26, 2012, in Austin, Texas, is a unique opportunity to learn about behavioral nutrition and physical activity, interact with a broad constituency of leaders, and gain new insight into innovations in research, policy and practice.

Register here. See a list of key speakers and special features here.

Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children, is an event sponsor. Salud America! is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday.

Making the Connection: Linking Policies that Prevent Hunger and Childhood Obesity

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1 year ago
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New Policy Brief

In the past, food insecurity and obesity were viewed as separate public health problems, yet research now shows that people with unreliable access to food are also more likely to be obese.

A new brief, Making the Connection: Linking Policies that Prevent Hunger and Childhood Obesity, released by Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, provides policymakers seeking to address hunger in their communities with policy options that can also contribute significantly to reversing the childhood obesity epidemic.

Some of the policy strategies outlined in the brief include:

  • Establishing healthy food financing initiatives to increase access to nutritious foods;
  • Supporting farm-to-institution, farm-to-school and school garden programs;
  • Increasing free and reduced-price school meals; and
  • Partnering with the private sector to increase the value of federal nutrition assistance benefits for healthful foods through double-coupon initiatives.

Read more here.

Study: Children in South Texas ‘Colonias’ More Likely to be Sedentary, Obese

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1 year ago
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Editor’s Note: This is a 20-part series featuring new research briefs on Latino childhood obesity, nutrition, physical activity and more by the 20 grantees of Salud America! Part 19 is Dr. Nelda Mier. Find all briefs here.

Dr. Nelda Mier

Dr. Nelda Mier
“Built Environment Policy for Physical Activity in Mexican-American Children”

In her Salud America! pilot research project, Dr. Nelda Mier of the Texas A&M Health Science Center investigated Latino children’s perceptions of environmental factors that influence their physical activity, and documented environmental characteristics in colonias in South Texas.

Colonias are unincorporated settlements along the U.S.-Mexico border where many people live in impoverished conditions and lack basic services such as running water.

Key preliminary findings include:

  • Mexican-American children in colonias do not meet physical activity requirements, are very sedentary and are likely to be overweight or obese;
  • the built environment influences physical activity among children in colonias; and
  • nearly all colonias lack sidewalks, pedestrian signage and parks.

Results suggest that children living in predominantly Latino colonias in South Texas are likely to be both sedentary and obese. Colonias tend not to have a built environment conducive to physical activity, resulting in a lack of activity and high rates of sedentary behavior and obesity among Mexican-American children and their families.

Read more here.

Salud America! is an RWJF national program directed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, the team behind SaludToday.

How Can You Contribute to the Improvement of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention?

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1 year ago
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Latinos, you may not know how important it is for cancer researchers to have racial/ethnic biospecimens.

Increasing the number of Latino biospecimens—or samples of biological material, such as blood, urine, saliva, tissue, tumors, etc.—will be critical to accelerating our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer and creating a more accurate genome in many types of cancers that disproportionately affect Latinos.

This, in turn, will lead to the development of better diagnostic tools; and ultimately, to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer among all people.

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) is a joint effort between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

TCGA uses an integrated approach of connecting hundreds of researchers across the cancer care continuum with the intent of broadening knowledge and understanding of the underlying molecular basis of cancer through the application of various genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genomic sequencing. TCGA is examining a very large number of samples, up to 500 samples for each tumor type, that will provide the statistical power needed to produce a comprehensive genomic profile of each cancer.

TCGA bears the significant laboratory costs of comprehensively processing and characterizing biospecimens from the TCGA genomics datasets and across multiple genomic platforms and then, standardizing, and integrating the data and clinical annotation across all the contributing sites. Software is available for a broad range of data management and associated analysis tools.

For more information on how you can help/participate, visit the TCGA website or contact Susan Serice of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio at serice@uthscsa.edu.

NCI’s Cancer.gov Goes Mobile

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1 year ago
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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has launched a new mobile website, m.cancer.gov.

Designed specifically for mobile phone users on any mobile platform, the site in English and Spanish offers much of the same high-quality information found on cancer.gov’s desktop site.

Available in English and Spanish, m.cancer.gov provides cancer patients, their loved ones, and their caregivers with credible, current information about:

  • A wide range of cancer types
  • Cancer diagnosis and treatment
  • Dealing with treatment side effects
  • Questions to ask your doctor
  • Breaking and current cancer news
  • A dictionary of cancer terms that includes audio pronunciations
  • One-touch connection to NCI’s 1-800-4-CANCER information specialist line

In the future, additional content, including information about clinical trials, will be added to m.cancer.gov.

Latina Moms and Moms-to-Be, Get Free Health Tips by Text

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1 year ago
by admin in ,

text4babyCheck out Text4baby, a free bilingual mobile information service that provides pregnant women and new moms with information to help them care for their health and give their babies the best possible start in life.

Sign up for the service by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411.

Once enrolled, three free SMS messages are sent each week, timed to either a woman’s due date or baby’s date of birth.

Text4baby has proven beneficial effects, according to a recent study of 122 women by the National Latino Research Center at California State University, San Marcos, and the University of California, San Diego:

  • 64% reported text4baby helped them remember an appointment or immunization they or their child needed.
  • 75.4% reported that a text4baby message informed them of medical warning signs they did not know.
  • 71.3% reported talking to their doctor about a topic that they read on a text4baby message.

Text4baby, an educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB), launched two years and has enrolled almost 300,000 subscribers and sent more than 28 million text messages. The program has more than 700 outreach partners including MTV, the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, and more.

Learn more at www.text4baby.org. Follow the effort on Facebook and Twitter.

Èxito! Grad Testimonial: Marievelisse Soto-Salgado

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1 year ago
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Editor’s Note: This is the testimonial of a graduate of the 2011 Summer Institute of Èxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training. Read more testimonials here or apply by March 1 for the 2012 Èxito! program.

Marievelisse Soto-Salgado
Puerto Rico

Marievelisse Soto-Salgado

Marievelisse Soto-Salgado grew up dedicated to solving public health problems in what she calls “La Isla del Encanto”—her hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

She got her passion for science and research through her time obtaining a bachelor’s degree in general sciences and a master’s degree in public health. She’s even been working for several years with a team of researchers at the University of Puerto Rico on a National Cancer Institute-funded cancer research project, and she coordinates a Biostatistics and Bioinformatics core and provides statistical support and consultation for cancer research projects.

Soto-Salgado knows she wants to continue working in Latino cancer research, but wanted to learn more about academic opportunities available in the U.S. before deciding to pursue a doctoral degree.

So she joined Éxito! Latino Cancer Research Leadership Training, which aims to increase diversity in Latino health disparities and cancer research by encouraging Latino master’s-level students and master’s trained health professionals to pursue a doctoral degree and a career in research.

“Before entering into the Éxito! program, I knew I was interested in a career in cancer control within the Latino/Hispanic community, but the Éxito! program helped me realize that this is definitely what I want do,” Soto-Salgado said. “Through the speaker’s presentations, I found a research area—the behavioral sciences research area—that I did not know, and now I want to explore before making my PhD.”

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