2012 Annual Report
1a.Objectives (from AD-416):
An objective of the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU) being conducted in part under this cooperative agreement is to identify barriers and facilitators to adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DG) and examine how differential profiles of adherence relate to obesity in children and adults of the Delta region. The specific objective of this cooperative agreement is to establish and support a cooperative partnership between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Tufts University (Tufts) which will permit scientific work amongst ARS/Tufts Nutrition Scientists to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to assess DG adherence barriers and facilitators for African-American and Caucasian children and their caregivers of the Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD) region and elsewhere in the U.S.
1b.Approach (from AD-416):
The Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU), in partnership with Tufts University and other research cooperators, will use data obtained from nominal group methodology, to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to assess the adherence to the USDA Dietary Guidelines of African American and Caucasian fifth grade children and their caregivers in the Lower Mississippi Delta region and elsewhere in the U.S. Tufts scientists will contribute expertise in dietary intake assessment, sampling design, and data entry management for this survey the HEALTH study. Tufts scientists will also provide technical expertise in pilot research using dietary data, for the identification of dietary patterns which will be adapted to the DG for the LMD and other participating sites. These data will be used to determine the feasibility of the adoption of these patterns in the prevention of obesity. Tufts’ representative will provide technical expertise in proposal writing, data analysis and manuscript preparation.
Data collected on the barriers and facilitators to meeting the USDA dietary recommendations during the previous year of the HEALTH Study from Boston public school families in three major racial ethnic groups, was used to create a comprehensive questionnaire. This questionnaire is in the form of rating scale questions and fill-in-the-blank questions, and covers topics such as barriers and facilitators to meeting the USDA nutrition recommendations, food frequency consumption, allergies, and dairy consumption. The questionnaire was printed in both English and Spanish. In Boston, 202 caregiver child pairs met study requirements for race and public school grade weight and height information successfully completed the HEALTH Study questionnaires. Each pair was compensated for their time. Data on race, income, education level, city, state, and country of origin, as well as weigh and height information, were also collected. Once completed, questionnaires were entered into spreadsheets for inventory, then cleaned and reviewed for accuracy. Once it was confirmed that the recruitment goals for each racial ethnic group was achieved, booklets were prepared for scanning and a data set was created. This data set is in the process of being analyzed by principal investigators, and manuscripts are being prepared.
The Boston HEALTH Study site, based at Northeastern University, coordinated the scanning of the Scantron booklets collected from each of the five HEALTH Study sites. A list of requirements was sent to each site prior to shipping to ensure the quality of data. Each of the sites' booklets were entered into an inventory twice to ensure accuracy; once double counted, each booklet was reviewed for errors and cleaned for stray marks. Each booklet was then sent through the Scantron scanning machine and a data set was created for each site, synthesized by site and racial ethnic group. Each data set was sent to HEALTH Study principal investigator located at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Paper topics were determined via phone conference, and manuscripts are currently in process.