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Three Hispanic groups to collaborate on two-year, $75,000 project
June 11, 2009
Myriam Torres
An effort to halt the epidemic of obesity among Latino children is the focus of a project organized by Dr. Myriam Torres, director of the Arnold School’s Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies.
The two-year effort, funded with a $75,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Salud America program, is titled Juntas Podemos (Together We Can): Empowering Latinas to Shape Policy to Prevent Childhood Obesity.
Other organizations that will collaborate on the project include the SC Public Health Institute and SC Spanish Outreach/Acercamiento Hispano de Carolina del Sur.
“We know that Latino children are disproportionately affected by obesity,” Torres said of the project that will focus on Latino residents in the City of West Columbia.
The Latino population of the city is part of an influx of Hispanics that USC estimates at some 159,600, with a potential total of 316,000 by 2010.
The project will utilize the Photovoice technique, where a dozen Latino mothers will be given cameras to photograph the lives of their children and living conditions in the West Columbia area.
Romel Lacson, who founded the USC Amaya-Lacson TB Photovoice Project, is a consultant for the project and will train the researchers to use the cameras.
Torres says photos of the West Columbia neighborhoods will help document both opportunities and barriers for Latino children to exercise. The photos also will be viewed by three focus groups of Latino women who will be asked to provide feedback and analysis of what they see.
Additionally, the photos may be displayed at a community event and, at least once, to the community relations director for the City of West Columbia community so city officials can keep abreast of the project.
At the same time that local conditions are being photographed, researchers will interview teachers, coaches and other personnel in local schools for their perceptions of how Latino children are exercising in comparison to their peers.
Without prejudging the outcome of the project, Torres says some things are already apparent about the lives of Latino children in the Carolinas and Georgia:
- Most (64 to 66 percent) have their roots in Mexico
- Most are new (first generation) residents of the US
- Sidewalks are not readily available in many Latino neighborhoods
- Some Latino children are not comfortable or feel welcomed in parks that in some instances are not in close proximity.
Torres says that the Juntas Podemos project is an opportunity to help establish good diet and exercise habits in young, new Latinos before they become accustomed to a lifestyle of fast food and inactivity.
Salud America! is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that supports research on environmental and policy solutions to the epidemic of obesity among Latino children.
The program also aims to develop a network of researchers whose findings will help identify the most promising obesity-prevention strategies specifically tailored for Latino communities.
Findings will advance RWJF’s efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.
