Integrating Responsive Feeding and Nutrition Security to Prevent Early Childhood Obesity in Food-Insecure Populations

University Of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas NV

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract: Despite an increase in the diversity of the United States (US) population, women from an underrepresented race/ethnic minority group remain underrepresented in higher education, particularly in the biomedical research workforce. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) will be the home institution of this diversity supplement and is a designated Minority Serving Institution (MSI) striving to reduce the barriers that minority students such as Filipinos have when obtaining higher education. This application aims to build upon the parent U01 grant to provide mentored research training in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and mixed-methods research for a pre-doctoral and Filipino woman to promote diversity in the field of early childhood obesity (ECO) prevention, particularly among food insecure populations. ECO in young children under the age of three is a public health crisis in the US. The proposed research project builds upon the lessons learned from the U01 parent grant creating the Early Nurturing Care for Food Security (EARN-FS) multi-level intervention to promote maternal-child food insecurity to (a) analyze an existing secondary dataset from the U01 parent grant to assess the risk of nutrition insecurity (i.e., increased consumption of ultra-processed food and lack of food diversity, including vegetables and fruits) among children who reside in food insecure households and (b) conduct a scoping review to assess whether and how interventions aiming at food and/or nutrition security integrate responsive feeding approaches (i.e., child-caregiver interactions during feeding) as a mechanism to prevent ECO; (c) compile programmatic and policy opportunities within individual, service, and community-levels to integrate food security, nutrition security, and responsive feeding approaches to prevent ECO. Through this diversity supplement, the candidate will get direct mentoring from the U01 parent grant PI and an additional six experts at UNLV to complete five goals: 1) gain mixed-methods research and advanced CBPR experience, 2) build scientific knowledge on ECO and health disparities, 3) expand her ECO network and conference presentations, 4) increase her publication record by improving her writing skills, and 5) advance in a PhD in the Public Health program to obtain a terminal degree. The expected outcomes for the candidate include publishing two peer-reviewed manuscripts as first-author, applying for an NIH F99/K00 Fellowship, expanding her scholarly network, and successfully progressing toward a PhD terminal degree.