Mobile Healthy Food Purchasing Intervention for Hispanics

描述(申请人提供)：在美国，超过四分之三的西班牙裔女性超重或肥胖。高超重率使这些女性面临各种疾病和健康状况的高风险，如2型糖尿病、冠心病和骨关节炎。由于孩子们的饮食习惯与父母相似，难怪拉美裔儿童的肥胖率是美国所有种族/民族中最高的。这些高失业率的原因是多方面的，涉及文化和社会经济因素。拉美裔美国人健康饮食的障碍包括食品价格高、难以获得食品、缺乏新鲜或冷冻食品，以及缺乏关于健康饮食习惯的知识。以前的研究已经证明，购买食物是一种可改变的行为，营养教育可以改变食物中某些营养素的摄入量。虽然已经开发了许多健康饮食移动应用程序(“app”)，但这些应用程序都没有结合创建用户生成的食品清单、分析食物的营养价值和成本以及推广美国农业部的MyPlat可视化方法的能力。此外，这些应用程序都没有针对西班牙裔人口，包括西班牙语、根据文化定制的食物购物建议、教育和励志短信，以及通过社交媒体提供的同行支持。这项拟议的SBIR第一阶段研究植根于健康行为变化理论，旨在减少拉美裔美国人的肥胖和超重，这将是开发和评估这样一款应用程序的第一次努力。鉴于拉美裔美国人普遍使用智能手机，拟议的医疗技术干预是可行的，也是具有成本效益的。我们将在第一阶段进行形成性评估，以测试APP的可用性、可行性和初步效果。在第二阶段，我们将进行两组随机对照试验，将拟议的移动健康干预与另一款只提供不同食物营养价值的主流健康饮食应用程序进行比较。主要结果包括：(A)用户每天食用推荐水果和蔬菜的动机准备的变化；(B)用户归因于健康饮食的价值的变化；以及(C)健康食品的购买和消费行为。第二阶段还将开发一个可以与用户的移动应用程序同步的匹配网站。随后的第二阶段应用程序将导致一个创新的、可访问的、移动的和基于网络的健康食品购买计划，旨在改善拉美裔妇女及其家庭的健康饮食习惯，从而减少这一群体中的肥胖和超重。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over three-quarters of Hispanic women in the US are overweight or obese. High rates of excess body weight place these women at heightened risk for a variety of illnesses and health conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and osteoarthritis. Since children tend to share their parents' eating habits, it is no surprise that Hispanic children have the highest rates of obesity for any racial/ethnic group in the US. The reasons for these high rates are varied, and involve cultural and socioeconomic factors. Documented barriers to healthy eating among Hispanics include high cost of food, lack of accessibility to food, lack of availability of fresh or frozen foods, and lack of knowledge abou healthy eating habits. Previous studies have demonstrated that food purchasing is a modifiable behavior and that nutritional education can effectuate changes in food consumption of certain nutrients. While a number of healthy eating mobile applications ("apps") have been developed, none of these have combined the ability to create a user-generated a grocery list, analyze nutritional value and cost of food, and promote the USDA's MyPlate visual method. Moreover, none of the apps targets the Hispanic population, incorporating Spanish language, culturally-tailored food shopping suggestions, educational and motivational text messages, and peer support via social media. This proposed SBIR Phase I study, rooted in theories of health behavior change and oriented towards reducing obesity and overweight among Hispanics, would be the first effort to develop and evaluate such an app. The proposed medical technology intervention is feasible and cost-effective, given the prevalence of smart phone use among Hispanics. We will conduct formative evaluations in Phase I to test the usability, feasibility, an preliminary effectiveness of the app. In Phase II, we will conduct a two-group randomized control trial to compare the proposed mobile health intervention with another mainstream healthy eating app that only provides the nutritional value of different foods. Key outcomes include: (a) changes in user motivational readiness to eat recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day; (b) changes in the value that users ascribe to healthy eating; and (c) healthy food purchasing and consumption behavior. A matching website that can be synced with the user's mobile app will also be developed in Phase II. The subsequent Phase II application will lead to an innovative, accessible, mobile and web-based healthy food purchasing program designed to improve healthy eating habits for Hispanic women and their families, with the goal of thereby reducing obesity and overweight in this population.