We are pleased to have served as Issue Editors for this issue of Family & Community Health (34.1), whose title is "Contemporary Topics in Family and Community Health." Indeed, we have selected from a vast array of articles submitted to this issue and believe that you will broaden both your knowledge and appreciation for the work that your contemporaries are conducting in the exciting field of health promotion.
Many of the articles remind us about the importance of addressing the obesity epidemic. Glassman et al point out that in a New York City Head Start program in which they work, among 3- to 5-year-olds, overweight and obesity is greater than 40%!! Latinos are at even greater risk, which has societal implications in that this population group is the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States. In exploring the potential role that Latino parents have in preventing obesity, they found that culturally effective, family-based obesity interventions, particularly related to food and diet, can be successfully implemented for preschool children.
Thompson et al also discuss obesity prevention at the state level through the federally funded Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, which, like Head Start, is a resource where parents can acquire new knowledge, ideas, and support for obesity prevention in their children. The authors describe a community-oriented assessment that provided opportunities for parents to have direct input into revising and updating the curriculum to include information on child body weight and growth that will be delivered by paraprofessionals in a more client-focused and friendly manner.
In Australia, Hinkley et al also focus on the parent's role in influencing the pre-school-aged population in relation to the role of physical activity as it relates to obesity prevention. Using an approach based on a social ecological model, parents were able to explore a broad range of factors beyond themselves that influence their preschool children's physical activity, including the child's personality, the influence of the family, and the environment both social and physical. Recognizing the impacts that these aspects of a child's world may have on their level and interests in engaging in physical activity has important implications for the prevention of obesity in childhood.
Vaughn et al, in working with school-aged children, remind us of the already-existing resource that is school-based health and introduces an innovative method, Group Level Assessment, that individual schools can use to engage students in identifying health needs. Students in Kindergarten through eighth grade identified the need for more sports and after-school activities (physical activity) as well as better school lunches (diet and nutrition) as among their top priorities-these having implications for the prevention of obesity among children, coming directly from the children themselves!!
Building on the use of the social ecological model for understanding the multidimensional influences on youth behavior, Hong et al provide us with a sweeping overview of the obesity trends and physical education polices of the 13 states with the highest and lowest youth obesity rates. They found that while physical education policies exist in most states, they are not mandated and there is great variation in the amount of time and grade-level requirements for physical education in each state. Interestingly, they did not find much distinction in policies among states with higher and lower prevalence rates of obesity among youth, indicating that policy must be combined with other levels of health promotion interventions (eg, parents, families, schools, and communities) to reduce this staggering epidemic.
The article by Palen et al investigates another area of parental influence, parent-adolescent child communication regarding sexual beliefs. Using a randomized controlled trial study design, the authors evaluated the effects of a media campaign targeting parents with messages aimed to increase parent-child communication about waiting to initiate sexual activity. They argue that social marketing is another viable strategy for health promotion professionals to consider using, particularly when working with adolescent populations. In addition, messages can be targeted to both parents and adolescents when dealing with the often-difficult topic of sexual behavior.
Finally, we circle back to the themes of diet and physical activity and their relationship to hypertension. Kolb et al conducted a descriptive study to elicit Patient Explanatory Models of hypertension among Mexican American adults for whom these data do not currently exist, unlike diabetes, about which much is known. It is important to explore the Mexican American population's view of the cause, course, treatment, and desired outcome of treatment of hypertension as a point for negotiating treatment due to the high prevalence of undertreated hypertension in this population.
In summary, we believe that this issue's articles will be of great importance and interest to the readers of the Journal as they focus our attention on the growing obesity epidemic and in particular 2 of its major contributing factors, diet/nutrition, and physical activity. The primacy of the role that parents play in regulating these and other factors such as sexual activity are highlighted. Likewise, approaching these issues from a social ecological model that is inclusive of community-initiated and -oriented policy and environmental considerations is also key in our efforts to develop and improve health promotion programming now and in the future.
-Karen E. Peters, DrPH
Assistant Professor Department of Community Health Sciences School of Public Health National Center for Rural Health Professions College of Medicine-Rockford, Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago
-Sergio Cristancho, PhD
Research Assistant Professor National Center for Rural Health Professions University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine-Rockford, Illinois, National School of Public Health, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia
Call for Community Lay Health Promoters/Community Health Workers Articles Family & Community Health (35:2)
The interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal Family & Community Health FCH will produce an issue on lay health promoters/community health workers (LHP/CHW) also known as lay health workers, village health workers, promotoras, etc. The issue co-editors are Elizabeth Reifsnider, Elnora (Nonie) P. Mendias, and Yolanda R. Davila, at the University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing in Galveston, Texas. Please submit manuscripts for consideration electronically to elreifsn http://utmb.edu by August 2, 2011. Articles are being solicited on topics as follows:
* Building infrastructure that supports LHP/CHW
* Lay health promoters/CHW and environmental health
* Building community partnerships for LHP/CHW
* Using LHP/CHW with vulnerable populations
* Research
* Examples of research using LHP/CHW
* Evaluation research using LHP/CHW
* Historical development or current trends and definitions of LHP/CHW
* Concept analyses or systematic/integrative reviews related to LHP/CHW
FCH focuses on health care practitioners, regardless of the area of practice. The journal's overall goal is to provide a forum to discuss a holistic approach to family and community health care and primary health care, including health promotion and disease prevention. Each issue of FCH focuses on a specific topic that can be used by faculty, practitioners, and students in a range of health care disciplines.
FCH is indexed in the Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences; Research Alert; Social SciSearch; Family Studies Database; Health Promotion and Education Database; Cancer Prevention and Control Database; Nursing Abstracts; Psychological Abstracts; PsychINFO; PsysLIT; Journals ovid; Sociological
Abstracts; Social Planning/Policy & Development Abstracts; MEDLINE; MEDLARS; and Index Medicus.
For further information about the journal or to access the Author Guide on the FCH Web site, please visit http://www.familyandcommunityhealth.com.