Healthy Choices Catch On: Data-informed Evolution of a Social Marketing Campaign.

Objective: Describe how a multiyear, mixed-methods evaluation informed the evolution of a healthy eating and physical activity social marketing campaign.

Design: Focus groups, A/B survey to test messages and images, telephone interviews (2019) with local programmers, and an annual outcome survey.

Setting: Statewide through multiple channels: billboards, transit signs, social media, website, and program resources like banners and posters.

Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Strategies in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed).

Objective: To categorize and quantify how states planned to use policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change strategies in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed).

Methods: Qualitative content analysis of SNAP-Ed annual plans from all 50 states, District of Columbia, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands between fiscal years 2014 and 2016.

Results: Between 2014 and 2016, the percentage of states that included PSEs as a statewide goal increased from 25% to 47%, and the percentage that planned to implement at least 1 PSE increased from 56% to 98%.

Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated With WIC Site-Level Breastfeeding Support Practices.

Objective: To describe Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) site-level breastfeeding support practices and associations with breastfeeding outcomes.

Design: Secondary analysis of WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2, including data from interviews with caregivers of infants and interviews and surveys with staff from 27 WIC state agencies and 80 study sites.

Participants: A total of 1,235 mothers of breastfed infants participating in the WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2.

Community-Based Efforts to Prevent and Manage Diabetes in Women Living in Vulnerable Communities.

Social determinants of health likely play a significant role in the development of type 2 diabetes for women in vulnerable communities. Adult African American women diagnosed with or at-risk for diabetes in Inkster, Michigan (n = 113) and a group of demographically similar women in Flint, Michigan (n = 48) participated in programs aimed at increasing diabetes-related self-management behaviors through peer coaching, health literacy training, and social support. Participants completed surveys to measure changes in health, health behaviors, health literacy, and social support.

Cooking Matters for Adults Improves Food Resource Management Skills and Self-confidence Among Low-Income Participants.

Objective: Determine the impact of Cooking Matters for Adults (CM) on food resource management (FRM) skills and self-confidence 6 months after course completion.

Design: Quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent comparison group and 6-month follow-up.

Setting: Cooking Matters for Adults programs in CA, CO, ME, MA, MI, and OR.

A randomized clinical trial of a culturally responsive intervention for African American women with asthma.

Background: Few interventions have focused on the difficulties that African American women face when managing asthma.

Objective: To evaluate a telephone-based self-regulation intervention that emphasized African American women's management of asthma in a series of 6 sessions.

Methods: A total of 422 African American women with persistent asthma were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group receiving usual care.

Pediatric Asthma Care Coordination in Underserved Communities: A Quasiexperimental Study.

Objectives: To assess the effect of care coordination on asthma outcomes among children in underserved urban communities.

Methods: We enrolled children, most of whom had very poorly or not well-controlled asthma, in medical-social care coordination programs in Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2011 to 2014. Participants (n = 805; mean age = 7 years) were 60% male, 50% African American, and 42% Latino.

The extent and patterns of multiple chronic conditions in low-income children.

Background And Objectives: Little is known about the magnitude of multiple chronic conditions (MCC) in children. This study describes the prevalence of and patterns of comorbidities in children receiving Medicaid assistance.

Methods: Diagnoses from 5 years of Medicaid claims data were reviewed and identified 128,044 children with chronic conditions.

Policy and system change and community coalitions: outcomes from allies against asthma.

Objectives. We assessed policy and system changes and health outcomes produced by the Allies Against Asthma program, a 5-year collaborative effort by 7 community coalitions to address childhood asthma. We also explored associations between community engagement and outcomes.

Study protocol for improving asthma outcomes through cross-cultural communication training for physicians: a randomized trial of physician training.

Background: Massive resources are expended every year on cross-cultural communication training for physicians. Such training is a focus of continuing medical education nationwide and is part of the curriculum of virtually every medical school in America. There is a pressing need for evidence regarding the effects on patients of cross-cultural communication training for physicians.

Asthma coalition effects on vulnerable sub groups of children: the most frequent users of health care and the youngest.

Objective: To examine the impact of Allies Against Asthma, community-based coalitions working to improve asthma outcomes, on vulnerable children: those with the most urgent health care use and those of youngest age.

Methods: Allies zip codes were matched with comparison communities on demographic factors. Five years of Medicaid data (n = 26,836) for significant health care events: hospitalizations, ED and urgent care facility visits, were analyzed.

Sustaining school-based asthma interventions through policy and practice change.

Background: Schools are an ideal setting for implementation of asthma interventions for children; however, sustaining school-based programs can be challenging. This study illustrates policy and practice changes brought about through the Childhood Asthma Linkages in Missouri (CALM) program to sustain such programs.

Methods: Researchers analyzed caregiver-reported quantitative data regarding asthma-related outcomes in preintervention and postintervention surveys and qualitative data regarding sustainability efforts in schools reported by CALM grantees.

Improvements in health care use associated with community coalitions: long-term results of the allies against asthma initiative.

Objectives: We assessed changes in asthma-related health care use by low-income children in communities across the country where 6 Allies Against Asthma coalitions (Hampton Roads, VA; Washington, DC; Milwaukee, WI; King County/Seattle, WA; Long Beach, CA; and Philadelphia, PA) mobilized stakeholders to bring about policy changes conducive to asthma control.

Methods: Allies intervention zip codes were matched with comparison communities by median household income, asthma prevalence, total population size, and race/ethnicity. Five years of data provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services on hospitalizations, emergency department (ED) use, and physician urgent care visits for children were analyzed.

Policy and system change and community coalitions: outcomes from allies against asthma.

Objectives: We assessed policy and system changes and health outcomes produced by the Allies Against Asthma program, a 5-year collaborative effort by 7 community coalitions to address childhood asthma. We also explored associations between community engagement and outcomes.

Methods: We interviewed a sample of 1477 parents of children with asthma in coalition target areas and comparison areas at baseline and 1 year to assess quality-of-life and symptom changes.

Selected diet and lifestyle factors are associated with estrogen metabolites in a multiracial/ethnic population of women.

Diet and lifestyle factors, body size, and smoking behavior may influence estrogen metabolism, but the nature of these relations may vary according to race/ethnic groups. We evaluated the association of lifestyle factors with estrogen metabolites 2-hydroxyestrone (2-OHE1) and 16alpha-hydroxyestrone (16alpha-OHE1) in a racially diverse population. With a cross-sectional study design, urine samples from 1881 African-American, Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hispanic women, aged 42-52 y, from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) were assayed by EIA for 2-OHE1 and 16alpha-OHE1.

Sarcopenia is related to physical functioning and leg strength in middle-aged women.

Background: In the aging process, loss of muscle is relatively continuous, but the initiation, timing, and amount of muscle loss that relate to functional compromise are poorly described. Also poorly understood is whether strength and functioning in aging are related to the amount of lean mass and its change as well as to the amount of fat mass and its change.

Methods: The purpose of the study was to ascertain whether 3-year lean and fat mass change predicted functional status in 712 African American and Caucasian women, aged 34-58 years.