Bridging Public Health Research and State-Level Policy: The Texas Research-to-Policy Collaboration Project.

Purpose And Objectives: Significant barriers to the implementation of evidence-based policy exist. Establishing an infrastructure and resources to support this process at the state level can accelerate the translation of research into practice. This study describes the adaptation and initial evaluation of the Texas Research-to-Policy Collaboration (TX RPC) Project, focusing on the adaptation process, legislative public health policy priorities, and baseline researcher policy knowledge and self-efficacy.

Outcomes of a Community-Wide Health Intervention in a Low-Income, Primarily Hispanic Community: The Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin (GAVA) Initiative.

Objectives: To describe outcomes of a 4-year physical activity (PA) and nutrition intervention (2013-2017) in Dove Springs, a low-income urban community in Texas.

Method: Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin is a place-based intervention targeting the built and social environments of PA and nutrition. Baseline and follow-up measures related to PA and nutrition were obtained from 357 parent-child dyads (final = 236) in the intervention community and a control community.

Design and evaluation of a coalition-led obesity initiative to promote healthy eating and physical activity in low-income, ethnically diverse communities: the Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin initiative.

Background: Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin (GAVA) is a coalition-led health initiative that targets low-income communities with disparities in access to healthy food and physical activity The purpose of this initiative was to increase healthy eating and physical activity among residents by facilitating access to food and physical activity opportunities through environmental and policy changes. Although GAVA is ongoing, this paper describes the original GAVA intervention and the 5-year evaluation study (2013-2018), presenting selected baseline data obtained through its cohort sub-study.

Methods: To assess the impact of GAVA, the evaluation plan included multiple sub-studies and involved collection of quantitative, qualitative, and observational data at different levels.

Designing Place-Based Interventions for Sustainability and Replicability: The Case of GO! Austin/VAMOS! Austin.

Place-based health efforts account for the role of the community environment in shaping decisions and circumstances that affect population well-being. Such efforts, rooted as they are in the theory that health is socially determined, mobilize resources for health promotion that are not typically used, and offer a more informed and robust way of promoting health outcomes within a community. Common criticisms of place-based work include the difficulty of , since engagement is so specific to a place, and limited of the work, in the absence of continued institutional structures, both within the community and supporting structures outside the community, to keep these initiatives resilient.

Increasing access to healthful foods: a qualitative study with residents of low-income communities.

Background: Inadequate access to healthful foods has been identified as a significant barrier to healthful dietary behaviors among individuals who live in low-income communities. The purpose of this study was to gather low-income community members' opinions about their food purchasing choices and their perceptions of the most effective ways to increase access to healthful foods in their communities.

Methods: Spanish and English focus groups were conducted in low-income, ethnically-diverse communities.

Adolescent obesity as a risk factor for high-level nicotine addiction in young women.

Purpose: Obesity and cigarette smoking are two of the most frequent and preventable causes of disease and death in the United States; both are often established during youth. We hypothesized that obese, adolescent girls would be at higher risk for nicotine addiction in young adulthood, and that particular individual and social factors would mediate this association.

Methods: Students surveyed in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative school-based and in-home survey conducted in three waves, comprised the sample.