Social and Family Environments and Child Obesity in Diverse Neighborhoods

描述(由申请人提供)：我的长期职业目标是建立一个进行跨学科研究的中心，以解决困扰不同文化背景的移民的公共健康问题。我的短期目标是用社会学、人口学和心理学领域的新理论、方法和方法来丰富我目前的研究计划，以解决健康差距问题，重点是移民人口中的儿童肥胖症。为了做到这一点，我建议从我的常规教学、建议和部门职责中抽出时间，专注于学习社会科学，特别是社会学中使用的理论和方法。经过营养学和流行病学的训练，我的研究已经从肥胖的个体风险因素调查转向环境风险因素的调查。自2002年以来，我的研究重点是研究社区环境，特别是不同类型的食品店(超市、便利店、小街角市场等)的存在(或不存在)。餐馆可能会影响人们的饮食行为。在这个过程中，我意识到来自营养流行病学的理论并不能充分解释社区导致肥胖的过程。特别是，我热衷于了解社会和家庭过程如何影响人们的饮食和身体活动行为，这是已知的影响肥胖发展的因素。因此，我希望正式接受一位著名的社会学家和社会人口学家的培训，以学习新的理论和方法。对于这项申请，我提出了一个培训计划，让我有有保障的时间来学习社会学中使用的那些理论和方法，这些理论和方法与理解社会和家庭如何影响儿童和青少年的肥胖风险有关。我将请加州大学洛杉矶分校的社会学家和社会人口学家安妮·佩布利博士作为我的主要导师。佩布利博士是NIH资助的洛杉矶家庭和邻里研究(L.A.FANS)的联合负责人，该研究一直在研究社区和邻里如何影响健康和福祉，以及儿童的发展。我将使用L.A.FANS收集的数据作为“训练场”，以了解社会和家庭过程是如何以与肥胖研究相关的方式来衡量和解释的。我希望这将丰富我目前的研究计划，为解决肥胖危机和由此导致的社会健康差距提供新的理论和方法。 与公共健康相关：肥胖是当今我国面临的最严重的公共健康问题之一。肥胖率一直在快速攀升，社会弱势群体的肥胖率更高，这些群体的社会问题阻碍了传统公共卫生教育计划的有效实施。解决肥胖问题的最具成本效益的方法是通过预防，特别是在儿童和青少年时期。此申请旨在培训一名中级营养研究员，掌握社会科学应用的理论和方法，以丰富她目前的儿童肥胖症研究计划，从而为她提供有助于解决肥胖社会差异的跨学科知识和技能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): My long-term career goal is to establish a center that conducts interdisciplinary research to address public health problems that afflict culturally diverse immigrants. My shorter-term objective is to enrich my current research program with new theories, methods, and approaches from the fields of sociology, demography, and psychology to address health disparities, with a focus on child obesity in immigrant populations. To do this, I propose to take time off from my regular teaching, advising and departmental responsibilities to focus on learning theories and methods used in the social sciences, particularly sociology. Trained in nutrition and epidemiology, I have shifted my research from the investigation of individual risk factors for obesity to the investigation of environmental risk factors. Since 2002, I have focused my research on studying neighborhood environments and in particular, how the presence (or absence) of different types of food stores (supermarkets, convenience stores, small 'corner' markets, etc.) and restaurants may shape people's eating behaviors. In the process, I realized that the theories derived from nutritional epidemiology do not adequately explain the processes whereby neighborhoods contribute to obesity. In particular, I am keen to learn how social and family processes influence people's food and physical activity behaviors, which are the factors known to affect obesity development. Accordingly, I wish to formally train with an established sociologist and social demographer in order to learn new theories and methodologies. For this application, I have proposed a training program that will give me protected time to learn about those theories and methods used in sociology that are relevant to understanding how societies and families influence obesity risk in children and adolescents. I will have Dr. Anne Pebley, a sociologist and social demographer at UCLA, as my primary mentor. Dr. Pebley co-directs the NIH-funded Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study (L.A.FANS), which has been researching how communities and neighborhoods affect health and well-being and also children's development. I will use the data collected by L.A.FANS as a 'training ground' for understanding how social and family processes are measured and interpreted in ways that are relevant to the study of obesity. I hope this will enrich my current research program with new theories and approaches for addressing the obesity crisis and the social disparities in health that result from it. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: One of the most serious public health issues facing our country today is obesity. Obesity rates have been climbing quickly and are higher in socially disadvantaged groups, where social issues present barriers to the effective implementation of traditional public health education programs. The most cost-effective way to address obesity is through prevention especially during childhood and adolescence. This application proposes to train a mid-level nutrition researcher in theories and approaches applied in the social sciences so as to enrich her current child obesity research program, hence providing her with the interdisciplinary knowledge and skills helpful for addressing social disparities in obesity.