A new study from researchers from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Louisiana Tech University highlights how children’s pester power may influence food consumption and habits at home. The study appears in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
DFPM-RED Faculty Member Recognized by NIH
The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities has named Dr. Taren Swindle a 2020 Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar.
Dr. Swindle Studies factors in early childcare and home environments that affect obesity. Co-Inventor of WISE, a prevention program for children under age 7, which has shown significant improvements in child and parents’ nutrition practices using principles of implementation science.
New Faculty Member joins DFPM-RED
Dr. Kanna Lewis has joined DFPM-RED as an Assistant Professor as of July 1. Dr. Lewis received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Maryland and published five peer-reviewed manuscripts while pursuing her doctoral degree. She previously was employed at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she developed and implemented various term structure models used for simulation, decomposition analysis, and evaluation of key metrics such as inflation expectation, term premia, expected short rate, and risk measures.
Dr. Lewis will continue current projects with Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) as well as new projects with DFPM-RED’s Dr. Lorraine McKelvey.
KATV Features New Resource for Parents During Covid-19
DFPM-RED’s Dr. Nikki Edge recently appeared on KATV to talk about a new resource for early care and education professionals and the children and families they serve. New Health Department guidelines now require that teachers caring for young children wear masks. While this is important for health and safety reasons, it can be confusing and upsetting to young children. Young children often have a hard time recognizing loved ones who change their appearance (for example, by shaving a beard or changing a hairstyle) and masks are a big change! Other children associate masks with ‘bad guys’ from the cartoons or have memories of scary Halloween masks.
The DFPM RED team collaborated with colleagues at A-State and ARBEST to develop a mask story primarily for teachers and parents of children under the age of 6. This story helps prepare children for what they will experience with their teacher (or other adults) and helps them understand that masks are safe and not scary. With the help of DHS, this story is being printed for distribution to every licensed child care program in AR.
See the KATV story here.
DFPM-RED Early Childhood Education Programs go online during pandemic
Much of DFPM-RED’s activity surrounding early childhood projects have met the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by moving online. Read the full story here.
DFPM-RED Faculty Member Awarded R-21 NIH Grant
Dr. Taren Swindle of UAMS’ Dept of Family and Preventive Medicine, Research and Evaluation Division (DFPM-RED) was recently awarded her first R-21 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The R21 grant mechanism is intended to encourage exploratory/developmental research by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of project development. A brief description of the awarded research is below:
Sustainability of Nutrition and Physical Activity Interventions in Childcare
Effective prevention and intervention programs are needed to increase adherence to cancer prevention guidelines to, in turn, reduce cancer incidence at the population level. Programs that are sustained over many years are likely to have the greatest impact to that end. This proposal will identify predictors of sustainability of nutrition and physical activity programs in childcare and develop sustainability strategies to support prevention programs in this setting.
Project HEAL in the spotlight in Arkansas’ only statewide paper.
UAMS DFPM-RED’s Project HEAL was featured in a story in today’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The project launched this year, in partnership with Little Rock nonprofit Better Community Development. The project is funded by a $2.5 million federal grant.
Read the full article HERE.
Home-Visiting Support for Low-Birth-Weight Preterm Infants
UAMS Department of Family and Preventive Medicine (DFPM) and the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) recently published the following report connected to DFPM-RED faculty member Dr. Lorraine McKelvey’s work with Arkansas Home Visiting Networks.
Infants born preterm and with a Low Birth Weight (LBW) have a greater risk for long-term health issues than infants who are born full-term. To reduce that risk and foster better health outcomes, the Following Baby Back Home (FBBH) program offers families of these infants additional support after their discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) through health-centered home visiting services.
This evaluation demonstrates that infants enrolled in FBBH receive more of their suggested childhood vaccinations and have a lower mortality rate than similar infants (matched control group) who are not enrolled in FBBH.
‘Stakeholder-Selected Strategies to Support Implementation of WISE’
The UAMS Department of Dietetics and Nutrition will host this presentation featuring DFPM-RED faculty member Taren Swindle, Ph.D. on Thursday, Jan. 9. The presentation will discuss implementation strategies for DFPM-RED’s WISE, a project which models, teaches, and promotes healthy food attitudes in programs that serve children preschool to elementary.
DFPM-RED’s TIPS team releases public Annual Report
The DFPM-RED TIPS team just finished their public-facing annual report today and are excited to share both the results and their new look!
Two years into executing their new evaluation framework, TIPS is seeing impressive survey results and app use statistics that are providing evidence for TIPS’ effectiveness as well as opportunities for growth.
Read the 2018-2019 report here.
About TIPS:
TIPS is a new, innovative parenting education program for parents of children ages birth to 5 years. With the TIPS training and toolkit, people working with parents can
- Share recent research through brief, family-friendly messages.
- Educate parents without parenting classes.
- Respond to parents’ concerns and tailor parenting information to individual families.
TIPS also hosts Naptime Academy, free online professional development for childcare professionals.