Reach Through Equitable Implementation of Turtle Island Tales

Reach Through Equitable Implementation of Turtle Island Tales is a family-level obesity prevention intervention that aims to reinforce AI cultural values of family interaction and holistic wellness. The long-term objective of this research program is to increase the reach of existing evidence-based interventions (EBIs) for cancer and obesity prevention among American Indian (AI) families who live in persistent poverty census tracts.

Turtle Island Tales is an obesity prevention program for AI families with young children (3-8 years) that was developed to address the gap in home-based, family wellness programs for this population. Substantial research as been conducted on the effectiveness of this program for participating families. The primary aim of the current project is to investigate community-engaged dissemination to improve the reach of Turtle Island Tales. Dissemination strategies will be undertaken in partnership with community leaders and/or local Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) agents who will disseminate the program through existing Extension/SNAP-Ed delivery mechanisms (SNAP-Ed is commonly administered through Extension programs of land-grant universities). Turtle Island Tales was accepted as a SNAP-Ed eligible program in 2022. As such, the program will be administered as part of usual/typical SNAP-Ed delivery in participating communities and largely constitutes program evaluation. The primary research question is: What is the reach of the evidence-based Turtle Island Tales wellness program intervention within AI communities? A secondary aim for this project is determining the effectiveness of Turtle Island Tales among participating families using program evaluation survey data obtained via SNAP-Ed program evaluation.