The Impact of a Parenting Intervention on Latino Youth Health Behaviors

Latino youth are a population at risk for chronic diseases because of their growing overweight and obesity rates, lack of adherence to nutrition and physical activity recommendations, and greater rates of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs use than youth of other ethnic groups. Parents are an important agent of change for youth due to their ability to create a home environment that promotes healthful behaviors (including substance use prevention and healthy nutrition), and parents' role as providers of resources to the family (including food). Parenting interventions are efficacious in preventing substance use among Latino youth, but few studies have used a family approach to promote healthy nutrition. Thus, the overall objective of the proposed project is to extend the scope of Families Preparing the New Generation (FPNG), an existing parenting program proven to help reduce substance use among Latino youth, to also promote healthy nutrition. The eco-developmental perspective will provide the theoretical foundation for the project for investigating risk and resiliency in Latino youth's drug use and nutrition behaviors. The main aims of the study are to (1) test the effects of a nutrition-enhanced parenting program (FPNG+) on substance use and nutrition among Latino youth, (2) explore how enhancing parenting skills impact the effects of the enhanced intervention, and (3) understand how social and cultural factors impact how the enhanced program works. The research team will first seek input from community members to create a nutrition-enhanced program that is acceptable to Latino parents of middle school students. The investigators will then collaborate with the American Dream Academy (ADA), an organization delivering an academic success program to families within middle schools throughout the Phoenix Area, to recruit 1,494 families who have a student in 7th grade to participate in the study. Parents from different schools will be offered one of three 10-week programs (assigned to each individual school): FPNG+ (substance use prevention and healthy nutrition), FPNG (substance use prevention only), and the ADA comparison program (focusing on academic success). Data will be collected from the 7th grade student and his/her participating parent before the start of the program, immediately after it ends, and 16 weeks later, to compare how the programs affect nutrition, substance use, and parenting. In a subgroup of 126 families (42 from each program), investigators will explore how the FPNG+ program affects diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors and whether the program induces changes in the types of foods available at participants' homes. For this, investigators will collect capillary blood samples from participants to measure glycosylated hemoglobin (a marker of diabetes risk) and cholesterol (a marker of cardiovascular risk), and blood pressure, as well as a list of foods that participants have at home. The long-term goal is to design and disseminate programs that contribute to helping parents assist their adolescent children develop and maintain long-lasting positive lifestyle behaviors in order to prevent substance use and chronic diseases.