Tufts researchers have received a $2.3-million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to design an obesity intervention program for immigrants in Somerville.
The investigators will focus on 400 randomly selected women and children who have been in the United States for less than five years and will use a competitive process to select participants. They will work to reduce weight gain in mothers and to prevent childhood obesity.
The study will focus on immigrants because arrival in a new country tends to disrupt eating habits.
"Immigrants can have really complicated lives working two jobs, struggling with a language, some maybe haven't yet qualified for a driver's license," Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering David Gute said. "The complexity of this life impacts both the work they do and the food choices they make."
Adult males are excluded from the research. "More often in any cultural group, the females are the decision-makers, especially with the food that comes in and how it is prepared," said Christina Economos, an assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition and the principal investigator on the program.
"We are anticipating a lot of single mothers and a lot of mothers who have custody," added Economos, who also directs the John Hancock Center on Physical Activity and Nutrition at the Friedman School.
One focus of the program will be to teach immigrants time-management strategies that will allow them to prepare healthy foods and find exercise opportunities.
"A common theme was not enough time to make proper meals," said Economos, who is also an assistant professor at the School of Medicine and an adjunct professor at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. "A greater reliance on fast foods as a means of getting food has led to weight gain."
Researchers selected the Somerville area for the project because of its already available infrastructure for obesity investigations, particularly in the form of community-relations resources. A previous project, Shape Up Somerville, utilized similar community networks with great success; that initiative worked with school-aged children to prevent obesity.
The researchers will partner with Somerville-based agencies that serve an array of immigrants, including the Haitian Coalition, the Brazilian Women's Group, the Welcome Project and the Community Action Agency of Somerville.
"I think the uniqueness of this is that Tufts is really committed to community-university research, and that hopefully is paving the way for other academics around the country to see that the research becomes richer when you actually work with people in the community rather than in the lab," Economos said.
This style of research provides untapped opportunities, its advocates say.
"It makes sense, and yet it is a relatively recent way of conducting research, particularly in health science," Gute said. "The money is coming from NIH, so for them to have taken on this community-based model really represents a step forward."
Economos will begin leading community focus groups this spring to plan the intervention program.
During the preliminary stages, researchers plan to inspect factors such as immigrants' proximity to various influences on weight, diet and exercise, including fast food restaurants, supermarkets and open spaces. Academics will also shape the intervention to fit with specific immigrants' cultures. Research assistants and translators will be assigned to work with each cultural group to help focus on adapting traditional diets.
Researchers hope to start working with the actual participants in September. In the meantime, they look forward to the work that lies ahead.
"It's a substantial grant from NIH," said Raymond Hyatt, assistant public health and family medicine professor at the School of Medicine. "All of us have put a lot of work into thinking about these issues and working with these groups in Somerville, and we're all very, very excited about it."
