The Arizona Nexus: the first five years.

Arizona Nexus is a pioneer Nexus Innovations Network (NIN) member with the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education (National Center) and a statewide collaborative with members from five public and private universities and six health care organizations in Arizona. The Arizona Nexus grew from the request of interprofessional champions at two public state universities, Arizona State University (ASU) and the University of Arizona (UA), to be part of the University of Minnesota's application and vision for the first National Center cohort. Culture change, shared vision, resources, and leadership are factors that have been in play in the development and growth of the Arizona Nexus.

Randomized Controlled Trial to Prevent Infant Overweight in a High-Risk Population.

Objectives: Infants are at risk of overweight. Infant overweight predisposes child, adolescent, and adult to obesity. We hypothesized that parent education, initiated prenatally and provided in the home, would reduce the incidence of infant overweight at age 12 months.

Relationship of Sleep Duration and Regularity with Dietary Intake Among Preschool-Aged Children with Obesity from Low-Income Families.

Objective: Diet is a modifiable factor associated with pediatric obesity outcomes, but few studies have evaluated the relationships of sleep duration and regularity on dietary intake of young preschool-aged children. The goal of this study was to evaluate whether short sleep duration and irregular sleep timing were associated with greater calorie, carbohydrate and fat consumption among young children with obesity from low-income families.

Methods: Fifty-one ethnically diverse children aged 2 to 4 years were recruited from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children clinics in a southeast Texas county.

Food security, maternal feeding practices and child weight-for-length.

Background: Over consumption of energy-dense nutrient-poor foods may contribute to childhood obesity. We hypothesized that greater than recommended servings of sugar sweetened beverages and foods, indicators of food security, and a high maternal recumbent weight-for-length are positively associated with high percentages of child overweight/obesity.

Methods: This secondary data analysis consisted of a sample of 240 mother-child dyads.

Reduced breastfeeding rates among obese mothers: a review of contributing factors, clinical considerations and future directions.

Maternal obesity is associated with significantly lower rates of breastfeeding initiation, duration and exclusivity. Increasing rates of obesity among reproductive-age women has prompted the need to carefully examine factors contributing to lower breastfeeding rates in this population. Recent research has demonstrated a significant impact of breastfeeding to reduce the risk of obesity in both mothers and their children.

We stop for no storm: coping with an environmental disaster and public health research.

Coping with natural disasters is part of the public nurses' role, and the public health nursing (PHN) researcher is doubly challenged with continuing to conduct community-based research in the midst of the disaster. The PHN may provide service along with attempting to continue the research. The challenges faced by public/community health nurse researchers as a result of hurricane Ike are discussed to provide lessons for other public/community health researchers who may be affected by natural disasters in the future.

A randomized controlled trial to prevent childhood obesity through early childhood feeding and parenting guidance: rationale and design of study.

Background: Early and rapid growth in Infants is strongly associated with early development and persistence of obesity in young children. Substantial research has linked child obesity/overweight to increased risks for serious health outcomes, which include adverse physical, psychological, behavioral, or social consequences.

Methods/design: The goal of this study is to compare the effectiveness of structured Community Health Worker (CHW)--provided home visits, using an intervention created through community-based participatory research, to standard care received through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) office visits in preventing the development of overweight (weight/length ≥ 85th percentile) and obesity (weight/length ≥ 95th percentile) in infants during their first 3 years of life.