Tools for Healthy Living

<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<br/> While unhealthy eating/obesity and lack of exercise are critical to healthy living, Connecticut's project defines this issue more holistically and addresses another key area: healthy home environments. In 2009, the U.S. Surgeon General called for action to promote healthy homes. Identified hazards include lead poisoning, poor indoor air quality, environmental tobacco smoke, household chemicals, pesticide exposure, and others. Many of these can be reduced or eliminated by scientifically validated interventions that improve health outcomes. Increased public awareness is a major goal of the Surgeon General's report. Educational materials will provide specific steps youth can take to reduce health hazards in their homes. Healthy homes are particularly important for Connecticut families at risk. The state's housing is considerably older than the
national average; children in these homes are most vulnerable to such housing related health problems as lead poisoning and asthma. In 2009, 737 Connecticut children under the age of six were reported as lead poisoned; urban black and Hispanic children have about twice the risk of lead poisoning as other children impairing their ability to learn and to control their own behavior. Lead poisoning is preventable. In 2008-9, 13% of Connecticut public school children were reported as having asthma; children with asthma miss more school than their peers. Hispanic and black children had higher asthma rates than children of other races and ethnicities. In 2010, the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) assessed the state's needs related to healthy homes. The resulting DPH Healthy Homes Strategic Plan (2011) identified public education as its first core goal to increase awareness of home
based hazards, health related impacts and remedial strategies. Youth and families were targeted audiences. The International Food Information Council reported that 87% of children surveyed prepared some of their own meals, yet they receive little or no training about safe food preparation and handling. The incidence of foodborne illnesses in children under 10 suggests that youth need to learn better food-safety practices. Through student participation, schools will become more involved in Healthy Living education as evidenced by their incorporation of program information into school publications, online parent resources, and inclusion of final projects in school based activities. Program providers will keep detailed information regarding each participant's long term project, where it will be displayed or demonstrated, and the key items taught through the project. Community agencies and
community members will become more involved in creating healthy home environments and with safer food practices as evidenced by their integrating youth projects or presentations into their monthly meetings or other promotional efforts. Volunteers will be invited to participate with youth participants as well as to visit the afterschool sites. Community volunteers may act as mentors to youth participants during the project development phase of the program.<p>
APPROACH: <br/>This SCP program will meet once a week for 10 weeks of instruction at each afterschool site for 60 minutes.Following this, participants will create long term healthy living research projects on topics of interest to them. Projects may be individual or group, suitable for community outreach, and may be displays, Facebook event page, part of a fair, a blog,project website, or a video public service announcement posted on YouTube. Also, curriculum, train the trainer and evaluation materials will be developed and staff will be hired and trained. 100 youth are targeted to participate in Year 1.Youth will be expected to apply the lessons learned in their own homes and with their families. Each successive year will begin in October, with additional locations being added each year. By the end of the project there will be 4 sites at each location (Hartford and New
Britain) with a total of 400 youth being involved. The summers after years 3 and 4 will add a summer enrichment experience for up to 100 students at the 4-H Education Center at Auer Farm to build on the food-safety curriculum.Each module will contain specific, measurable learning objectives and step by step instructions for teaching that emphasize experiential learning, hands-on activities, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Affective learning objectives will help learners recognize the importance of the topic and motivate them to act. Cognitive learning objectives will address knowledge of the issues, comprehension of the problems and solutions, and application of the solutions.Each module will start with a short pretest and end with a short post-test and qualitative evaluation. A retrospective pre/post-test will be administered at the end of the program to measure overall changes
in knowledge, skills, and attitudes over the course of the project.Both evaluation and technology specialists from the University of Connecticut will be engaged to develop evaluation procedures and tools for use with this program. Evaluation will initially measure participants' pre and post knowledge of topics presented in the Tools for Healthy Living Project. The technology specialist will help to develop specific applications for youth participants to explore and use in acquiring knowledge.Paper journals for each student will be made available for recording information tied to a key question each week. Youth may take surveys or pre/post evaluations using electronic means iPads/iPods or paper. Content analysis will be used to conduct thematic analysis of youth activity journals and to identify constructs. Youth will compare items they identify in their personal homes to the list of
hazards provided.Content analysis will be used to identify themes in youth activity journals. Pre and post survey data will be analyzed using quantitative analysis methodology.A survey, including the CYFAR Common Measure assessing Nutrition, will be administered to youth by program leaders at the beginning of the program and again at the end of the program. Statistical analysis of quantitative data collected in the pre/post surveys will be conducted to assess changes in youth attitudes and behavior regarding food safety.
</p><p>PROGRESS: <br/>2012/05 TO 2013/05 <br/>OUTPUTS: A 10 week Healthy Home Environment curriculum for youth grades 4- 6 has been developed and is being taught to at risk youth in 4 aftershool sites in CT ( 2 in Hartford and 2 in New Britain, CT). Newsletters on healthy home content are being developed for families of program youth and are being translated into Spanish. An evaluator has been hired and developed pre and post test measures to evaluate outcomes.The common measures for technology will be implemented using clickers provided by CYFAR. Two site instructors have been hired and trained to deliver the program to youth. There have been prliminary meetings with a technology specialist to develop an App to be used with youth with Healthy Home environment content. Ipads are being purchased to be used in the program beginning in April 2013. Youth will be introduced to Ipad
technology on- site. The grant team is meeting every month to review curriculum and newsletters, coordinate site schedules and meet routinely with the evaluator. PARTICIPANTS: Linda Horn, Mary-Margaret Gaudio, Sharon Gray, Lashawn Christie, and Joan Bothell are all Extension Educators at the University of Connecticut and have provided direct involvment in this project. Beth Russell from Human Development and Family Studies at UCONN has been hired as evaluation specialist and Timothy Gifford, Center of Health, Intervention and Prevention at UCONN is providing technolgy services for development of an App for use with technology. Two part- time instructors have been hired to work on-site with youth involved with this project. Partners currently include Four elementary school sites in Connecticut ( 2 in Hartford and 2 in new Britain) where children meet for afterschool programs. Training in
the healthy homes curriculum has been provided to the two hired instructors for program delivery to youth. Three grant project staff will be attending CYFAR's Making a Positive Impact for People and Communities in the 21 st Century to be held May 2013; the Grant PI also attended the CYFAR grants workshop held in Washington DC in May 2012. Grant program staff also participate in webinars provided by CYFAR. TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audience is at risk youth in two urban cities in Connecticut : Hartford and New Britain. Youth have been recruited at 4 afterschool programs and are meeting once a week over the course of 10 -12 weeks starting in January 2013. 60 youth in grades 4 - 6 have been recruited and are attending weekly sessions at the 4 sites ( generally the group size at each site is 15-20 youth). The healthy home environment curriculum is currently being administered to these
children. Pre and post evaluations are being conducted to capture changes in knowledge, actions or conditions - initial findings will be available in late May 2013 when the 10-12 week session is completed. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The first year of program effort began in January 2013 so reflects a shorter period of time (approx 10 weeks) with youth compared to subsequent grant years which will involve both Fall and Spring of the school year to work with youth. In the Fall of 2012 , effort was focused on curriculum development and development of evaluation measures. Therefore the first grant cycle, intervention consists of January to May 2013 and has a somewhat shorter period for youth to develop long term projects in the healthy home subject area. Subsequent grant years will allow for administration of the healthy home curriculum ( 10 weeks) plus a period of time (8-12 weeks) to develop a
longer term project.</p>