Engaging Tribal Policy Makers to Improve the Food and Physical Activity Environments in American Indian Communities

Engaging Tribal Policy Makers to Sustain Improvements to the Food and Physical Activity Environments in American Indian Communities (OPREVENT2)

The overall objective of the study is to reduce adult obesity in participating American Indian (AI) communities and to improve understanding of the behavioral and environmental factors affecting obesity in these settings.

The investigators plan to accomplish this objective by developing, implementing, and evaluating a randomized controlled trial of an intervention to improve diet and physical activity-related risk factors of obesity. A previous iteration of the intervention trial, called Obesity Prevention Research and Evaluation of InterVention Effectiveness in NaTive North Americans (OPREVENT) was implemented in five American Indian communities in Michigan and New Mexico. OPREVENT was a multi-level, multi-component intervention functioning at the community, institution, household, and individual levels and was implemented in schools, food stores, and worksites. Prior to OPREVENT, the research team has run multi-level interventions by working with schools and food stores in Native North American (NNA) communities1-6. For this new trial, named OPREVENT2, the research team will expand on the collective experience working on obesity prevention interventions in American Indian (AI) settings by developing complementary policy and social media components to support long-term sustainability of the OPREVENT intervention. OPREVENT2 will be implemented in six new AI communities.

Inclusion Criteria:

• With the exception of the school intervention, which will only include teachers of grades 2-6 and students in grades 2-6 (ages 6-13), all community members will be included in the intervention.

Gender, Age and Locale

• The investigators will work with male and female schoolchildren and adults, aged 6-13 and 18-75 years who live in one of the participating tribal communities.

Exclusion Criteria:

• No adult community members will be excluded from the intervention as they are "passive" media and environmental changes, and available to everyone.