Diabetes Prevention for Latino Youth: Unraveling the Intervention "Black Box"

The translation of research findings into sustainable health promotion and disease prevention programs in community settings remains a challenge. This report describes the process of substantiating a community-developed diabetes prevention program for Latino youth through research. Included are design considerations, measurement strategies, and the context through which the project is culturally grounded for relevance and fit within a local community. The process included (1) refining the program to include salient, stakeholder-identified behavioral components; (2) refining the collaborative effort to embrace the capacity for facilitating relevant behavior change on targeted health-related outcomes to enhance intervention effectiveness; and (3) including the accurate assessment of intervention efficacy via precise assessment of diabetes-related health outcomes. We explain the process of collaborating with community partners to enhance the cultural relevance and sustainability of intervention effects on both individuals and communities. We discuss the rationale for empirical support for academic-community collaborations that function in both a "top-down" and a "bottom-up" manner to advance the science and practice of sustainable and efficacious community health promotion.

Correlates of depressive symptoms after birth for Latinas who are overweight or obese

Depression symptoms and overweight/obesity are common concerns during childbearing. Both conditions are associated with poor outcomes at birth and can have long-lasting consequences. Predictors of depressive symptoms among overweight and obese low-income and ethnically diverse women are not known. Data are from the Madres para la Salud trial with 139 postpartum Latinas. Depressive symptoms during a prior pregnancy were positively related, while social support and moderate intensity physical activity (PA) were negatively related to depressive symptoms after birth. Social support and PA may be effective interventions, particularly for women who have experienced depressive symptoms in a prior pregnancy.

A comparison of a social support physical activity intervention in weight management among post-partum Latinas

BACKGROUND

Weight gain during the childbearing years and failure to lose pregnancy weight after birth contribute to the development of obesity in postpartum Latinas.

METHODS

Madres para la Salud [Mothers for Health] was a 12-month, randomized controlled trial exploring a social support intervention with moderate-intensity physical activity (PA) seeking to effect changes in body fat, fat tissue inflammation, and depression symptoms in sedentary postpartum Latinas. This report describes the efficacy of the Madres intervention.

RESULTS

The results show that while social support increased during the active intervention delivery, it declined to pre-intervention levels by the end of the intervention. There were significant achievements in aerobic and total steps across the 12 months of the intervention, and declines in body adiposity assessed with bioelectric impedance.

CONCLUSIONS

Social support from family and friends mediated increases in aerobic PA resulting in decrease in percent body fat.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01908959.

Physical activity and sedentary behaviors in postpartum Latinas: Madres para la Salud

PURPOSE

To describe the physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviors of postpartum Latinas who are overweight or obese before initiating Madres para la Salud, a social support-mediated walking intervention to promote postpartum weight loss.

METHODS

One hundred thirty-nine postpartum women (13.6 ± 7.7 wk since childbirth, age = 28.3 ± 5.6 yr, BMI = 29.7 ± 3.5 kg · m(-2); mean ± SD), recruited from organizations serving Latino residents in the Phoenix, Arizona, area completed the Stanford Brief Activity Survey and concurrently wore an accelerometer (ActiGraph) and a pedometer for 7 d and kept a PA record.

RESULTS

Most were classified as inactive and lightly active on the Stanford Brief Activity Survey (51% inactive, 37% light, 11% moderate). Most time was spent in sedentary (512.0 ± 169.9 min · d(-1)) and light-intensity PA (242.4 ± 51.4 min · d(-1)) with less time in moderate-intensity lifestyle (78.3 ± 39.9 min · d(-1)), moderate-intensity walking (16.6 ± 14.4 min · d(-1)), and vigorous-intensity PA (0.34 ± 1.5 min · d(-1)). Pedometer steps per day were low (total = 4973 ± 2202 steps, aerobic = 412 ± 774 steps), with most participants rated as sedentary (61%) or low active (28.1%). Consistent with objective PA measures, PA records showed more time spent in light-intensity PA such as home care, cooking, child care and self-care tasks, occupation, religious events, and watching television.

CONCLUSION

By and large, the postpartum Latinas enrolled spent most of their day in low-intensity activity levels with little time spent in health-enhancing PA levels/behaviors. This demographic should be the focus of PA interventions to increase PA to health-enhancing levels.

Social marketing: approach to cultural and contextual relevance in a community-based physical activity intervention

We report the social marketing strategies used for the design, recruitment and retention of participants in a community-based physical activity (PA) intervention, Madres para la Salud (Mothers for Health). The study example used to illustrate the use of social marketing is a 48-week prescribed walking program, Madres para la Salud (Mothers for Health), which tests a social support intervention to explore the effectiveness of a culturally specific program using 'bouts' of PA to effect the changes in body fat, fat tissue inflammation and postpartum depression symptoms in sedentary Hispanic women. Using the guidelines from the National Benchmark Criteria, we developed intervention, recruitment and retention strategies that reflect efforts to draw on community values, traditions and customs in intervention design, through partnership with community members. Most of the women enrolled in Madres para la Salud were born in Mexico, largely never or unemployed and resided among the highest crime neighborhoods with poor access to resources. We developed recruitment and retention strategies that characterized social marketing strategies that employed a culturally relevant, consumer driven and problem-specific design. Cost and benefit of program participation, consumer-derived motivation and segmentation strategies considered the development transition of the young Latinas as well as cultural and neighborhood barriers that impacted retention are described.

Promotoras' roles in integrative validity and treatment fidelity efforts in randomized controlled trials

Promotoras from the communities in which interventions are implemented can be effective contributors to validity and fidelity efforts. This article describes a 48-week randomized controlled trial Madres para la Salud (Mothers for Health) and illustrates the use of promotoras as collaborative members of the research team to contribute to attaining integrative validity and treatment fidelity. Madres para la Salud implements a culturally tailored physical activity program to effect changes in body fat, systemic and fat tissue inflammation, and depression symptoms. The significance of Madres para la Salud treatment validity and fidelity processes includes cultural tailoring of a social support intervention, and a promotora model to incorporate initial and ongoing fidelity monitoring.

Madres para la Salud: design of a theory-based intervention for postpartum Latinas

BACKGROUND

Weight gain in young women suggests that childbearing may be an important contributor to the development of obesity in women. Depressive symptoms can interfere with resumption of normal activity levels following childbirth or with the initiation of or adherence to physical activity programs essential for losing pregnancy weight. Depression symptoms may function directly to promote weight gain through a physiologic mechanism. Obesity and its related insulin resistance may contribute to depressed mood physiologically. Although physical activity has well-established beneficial effects on weight management and depression, women tend to under participate in physical activity during childbearing years. Further, the mechanisms underpinning the interplay of overweight, obesity, physical activity, depression, and inflammatory processes are not clearly explained.

OBJECTIVES

This report describes the theoretical rationale, design considerations, and cultural relevance for "Madres para la Salud" [Mothers for Health].

DESIGN AND METHODS

Madres para la Salud is a 12 month prospective, randomized controlled trial exploring the effectiveness of a culturally specific intervention using "bouts" of physical activity to effect changes in body fat, systemic and fat tissue inflammation, and postpartum depression symptoms in sedentary postpartum Latinas.

SUMMARY

The significance and innovation of Madres para la Salud includes use of a theory-driven approach to intervention, specification and cultural relevance of a social support intervention, use of a Promotora model to incorporate cultural approaches, use of objective measures of physical activity in post partum Latinas women, and the examination of biomarkers indicative of cardiovascular risk related to physical activity behaviors in postpartum Latinas.