Engaging Tribal Policy Makers to Improve the Food and Physical Activity Environments in American Indian Communities

The overall objective of the study is to reduce adult obesity in participating American Indian (AI) communities and to improve understanding of the behavioral and environmental factors affecting obesity in these settings.

The investigators plan to accomplish this objective by developing, implementing, and evaluating a randomized controlled trial of an intervention to improve diet and physical activity-related risk factors of obesity. A previous iteration of the intervention trial, called Obesity Prevention Research and Evaluation of InterVention Effectiveness in NaTive North Americans (OPREVENT) was implemented in five American Indian communities in Michigan and New Mexico. OPREVENT was a multi-level, multi-component intervention functioning at the community, institution, household, and individual levels and was implemented in schools, food stores, and worksites. Prior to OPREVENT, the research team has run multi-level interventions by working with schools and food stores in Native North American (NNA) communities1-6. For this new trial, named OPREVENT2, the research team will expand on the collective experience working on obesity prevention interventions in American Indian (AI) settings by developing complementary policy and social media components to support long-term sustainability of the OPREVENT intervention. OPREVENT2 will be implemented in six new AI communities.