Posts tagged Vanderbilt

Exposure to Recreation Center Increases Use by Latino Families with Children

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1 year ago
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Read about Dr. Barkin's Salud America! Project

Community recreation centers that develop culturally tailored programs that invite Latino families inside can increase sustained use of the center for physical activity in this population at heightened risk for childhood obesity, according to a new study in Childhood Obesity.

Living near community recreation centers (CRC) is associated with increases in adolescent and adult physical activity.

However, the efficacy of efforts to increase use among Latino parents and children is unknown.

So researchers, led by Dr. Shari Barkin, a Vanderbilt University researcher and grantee of Salud America!, compared 66 Latino parent–child pairs who had participated in a culturally tailored healthy lifestyle program at a community recreation center and completed a 12-month follow-up assessment to 62 pairs living within a 5-mile radius of the center.

About two-thirds of Latinos in the healthy lifestyle program reported more than monthly use of the center for themselves a year after programming ended, compared to one-third of those who didn’t.

Parents in the program also were four times more likely than the others to use the center with their children on a monthly basis.

Read more about the study here, or check out Dr. Barkin’s Salud America! research brief.

Dr. Barkin is one of 20 grantee researchers of Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children. The network is based at the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center.

Study: Exposure to Recreation Center Increases Use by Latino Families with Young Children

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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 15 is Dr. Shari Barkin. Find all briefs here.

Dr. Shari Barkin

Dr. Shari Barkin
“Exposure to Recreation Center Increases Use by Latino Families with Young Children”

In her Salud America! pilot research project, Dr. Shari Barkin of Vanderbilt University Medical Center assessed how exposure to a community recreation center affects whether Latino families with young children use the center for physical activity.

This assessment was conducted one year after families participated in a culturally-relevant healthy-lifestyles program at the center.

Key preliminary findings include:

  • programmed exposure to a community recreation center led to self-reported increases in physical activity use one year later by Latino parents and their children.

This study suggests an effective, low-cost approach that could be used to promote Latino families’ use of recreation facilities for increased physical activity.

Policymakers should be aware that building or renovating a center may not be the only step needed to support a community’s healthy lifestyle—creating programs that encourage families to “walk through the door” and learn how to use a community recreation center can lead to sustainable behavior change to support improved health through routine physical activity.

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.

Salud America! Grantee Gets $12M Award to Fight Early Childhood Obesity

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2 years ago
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Dr. Shari Barkin

Dr. Shari Barkin

Dr. Shari Barkin, a grantee of Salud America! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Nework to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children and a Vanderbilt University pediatric researcher, has been awarded a new $12 million NIH project, “Growing Right Onto Wellness (GROW): Changing Early Body Mass Index (BMI).”

The seven-year project, which teams Vanderbilt’s Department of Pediatrics with Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation, will bring 600 families to their neighborhood park facilities and provide a curriculum specially designed to fit a variety of ethnic groups.

The project was one of four funded through the NIH’s $49.5 million Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research (COPTR) program, which is among the first long-term obesity prevention and treatment research studies in children.

Barkin’s pilot project for Salud America!, which is led by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio (the team behind SaludToday), aims to increase access to physical activity and use of community recreation centers by Latino families to reduce pediatric obesity.

“We’re very excited about Dr. Barkin’s Salud America! pilot project with us and her new NIH award,” said Salud America! Director Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez. “She’s an outstanding researcher who is truly dedicated to improving the health of young people in this country.”

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