Latino Fathers Promoting Healthy Youth Behaviors
Condition: Diet Modification; Physical Activity; Parenting; Adolescent Obesity
MeSH terms: Pediatric Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of Latino parent-focused education that
      combines enhancing parent engagement, building quality parent-child relationships, promoting
      healthy eating and physical activity, and engaging families with community resources for
      healthy foods on youth energy balance related behaviors and weight status.
    

Detailed description: 
      The Latino Parents Promoting Healthy Youth Behavior Project aims to develop and evaluate the
      effectiveness of an intervention to prevent obesity among Latino youth (10-14 yrs) by
      engaging parents and their families in culturally and linguistically appropriate education.
      The goal of this project is to prevent overweight and obesity in Latino adolescents by
      increasing the frequency of positive paternal or maternal (or other caregiver) parenting
      practices related to the food and physical activity environment in the home (role modeling,
      availability, expectations, communication) which will improve weight status of children by
      improving energy balance related behaviors (EBRBs) - eating fruits and vegetables and
      limiting soft drink, sweets, salty snacks, and fast food consumption, limiting screen time
      and increasing physical activity).

      Objective 1) To adapt, implement and evaluate efficacy of a curriculum specifically for
      Latino families, using Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) that incorporates
      parenting education to increase frequency of parenting practices (role modeling,
      availability, expectations, communication) to improve EBRBs and weight status of youth.

      Objective 2) To evaluate the efficacy of Latino parent-focused education that combines
      enhancing parent engagement, building quality parent-child relationships, promoting healthy
      eating and physical activity, and engaging families with community resources for healthy
      foods on youth EBRBs and weight status.

      Formative research and planning will be completed in Years 1-2 including focus group
      interviews and consultation with community partners and a Parent Advisory Board. An existing
      8-session course curriculum will be adapted. The adapted curriculum will be pilot-tested with
      a small group of parents and children in a single group, pre-post design, and revised as
      needed.

      In years 2 to 4, a randomized-controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted based on full
      implementation of the adapted curriculum by collaborating agencies with the support of U of
      MN Extension. Training will be designed and implemented among community partner and U of MN
      Extension staff who will be implementing the program at local sites.

      The RCT will be implemented at two organizations in each of years 2, 3 and 4 in a staggered
      fashion. In year 5, data will be analyzed, reports developed, papers written and submitted
      for publication, and results will be reported back to community collaborators (organizations
      and individuals).

      Hypothesis:

        1. Compared to a delayed-treatment control group at immediate post-course and 3 months
           post-course, statistically significant changes will be observed in the home food and
           physical activity environment and frequency of related paternal and maternal parenting
           practices (making fruits, vegetables, and opportunities for physical activity more
           available and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), sweets, salty snacks, fast food and
           opportunities for sedentary behaviors less available; role modeling of positive EBRBs,
           setting expectations and rules related to improvements in EBRBs, and increased frequency
           of parent-youth communication regarding youth EBRBs).

        2. Compared to a delayed-treatment control group at immediate post-course and 3 months
           post-course, youth in the treatment group will have statistically significant
           improvements in EBRBs including increased fruit and vegetable intake, increased physical
           activity, lower intake of SSBs, sweets, salty snacks and fast food, decreased screen
           time/sedentary time, and stable weight status.
    

Intervention name(s): Parent education classes
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): 8 weekly classes for fathers and youth (10-14 years) at community centers focused on improving parenting skills, youth energy balance related behaviors and weight status
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Randomized-controlled trial
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Hispanic Latino families