Race/Ethnicity: Native Americans/Alaska Natives

Turtle Island Tales Family Wellness Program

The Turtle Island Tales family wellness program is a home-based, family-level, direct education intervention designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease added sugar intake, increase physical activity, decrease sedentary/screen time, promote healthy sleep, and promote emotional regulation, providing low-income, SNAP-eligible American Indian (AI) families with skills and tools needed to make healthy lifestyle choices. The year-long 12 lesson program is designed to be mailed into the home monthly as a kit focused on a particular topic each month. Each kit contains themed printed lessons for adults, a children’s book on the topic, support items, and multiple activities for adults and children (3-8 years). Each lesson is designed for use in the home by families for approximately 1-2 hours each month; additional games and recipes in the kit and online encourage engagement throughout the month. The program is reinforced by social media (Instagram/Facebook) and a website that contains healthy recipes, active games, tips for wellness, and short character-based films, and complements and reinforces existing policy, systems, and environmental change interventions in Native communities, such as community gardens, traditional activities, and tribal wellness programs. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time, Other: Sleep, emotional regulation 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

Child Health Initiative for Lifelong Eating and Exercise (CHILE) Plus

The Child Health Initiative for Lifelong Eating and Exercise (CHILE) Plus is a multi-component nutrition and physical activity education program for preschool age children and their families. CHILE Plus is the dissemination project of CHILE, a randomized control trial conducted by the University of New Mexico Prevention Research Center (UNM PRC). CHILE Plus is based on the socioecological model and includes 6 components that fit into this model: the classroom curriculum, staff professional development, food service, family engagement, grocery store collaboration, and partnership with local health care providers and Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program providers.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Cooking is a SNAP

Cooking is a SNAP is a direct education intervention designed to (1) increase fruit and vegetable consumption; (2) increase confidence to plan and prepare meals at home and (3) move 30 minutes a day, most days of the week. Cooking is a SNAP is a culinary nutrition education curriculum. The curriculum consists of six 2-hour sessions with nutrition content derived from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans incorporating the USDA’s MyPlate materials. Physical activity content is from the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition and the 2016 National Physical Activity Plan. Culinary skills and basic cooking techniques have been modified from school food service materials developed by the University of Minnesota Extension. Cooking is a SNAP incorporates the social-cognitive theory of change where learning occurs in a social context with dynamic and reciprocal interactions of the person, environment, and behavior. Central to this theory, Cooking is a SNAP is designed as a hands-on, interactive curriculum where the leaders model the skills and behaviors they are teaching.

 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Eat Smart to Play Hard

Eat Smart to Play Hard (ESPH) is a six-week social marketing campaign in which the community collaborates to engage students, parents, teachers, school staff, and other stakeholders in a common goal to “Eat Smart” in order to “Play Hard.” This obesity prevention campaign specifically focuses on increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among 8–11-year-olds in both rural and urban schools. During the campaign, students receive an activity booklet “Fun Book” that guides them through healthy eating and physical activities at home with their families. They return their Fun Book to school each week to receive a stamp from their teacher for every completed activity in order to earn incentives and a medal.  ESPH coordinators hang promotional materials throughout the school and community to support the desired behavior. At the end of the six weeks, the campaign culminates in a fun day event where students and teachers celebrate their success while enjoying healthy eating and fun physical activity.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time

Intervention Type: Social Marketing, PSE Change

Voices for Food (VFF)

Voices for Food (VFF) is a PSE change intervention designed to enhance food security in diverse rural communities with high poverty rates, utilize community coaches to develop new or provide support to existing food councils, and encourage policy changes in local food pantries that increase the availability of healthy foods. VFF focuses on the engagement of community coaches with communities to achieve intervention objectives while utilizing VFF materials. Community coaches address food system issues by focusing on local food policy and making environmental changes, such as community gardens, aiding the food pantry in obtaining more space, and working on other issues of food security. Community coaches work collaboratively with food pantries to make PSE changes that transition to a client choice model of distribution (MyChoice) and offer the VFF Ambassador’s training, which includes nutrition education, cultural competency training, and food safety training. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Eagle Adventure

The Eagle Adventure (EA) was designed to address the need for culturally relevant SNAP-Ed programming to prevent type 2 diabetes in Indian Country. EA was developed using the CDC Eagle Book series as the central theme. Through this series of four books, wise animal characters are brought to life. Mr. Eagle, Miss Rabbit and a clever trickster, Coyote, engage Rain That Dances and his young friends in the joy of being physically active, eating healthy foods and learning from their elders about traditional ways of being healthy. Throughout the program, youth and their families learn that type 2 diabetes can be prevented through healthful dietary and physical activity (PA) choices. Students in grades 1-3 are introduced to the program through the EA play, which embraces traditions of Native American storytelling. Students participate in hands-on activities and food experiences in each of the lessons.

EA includes the following social marketing components: school and radio announcements, newspaper messages, place-based signage, and social media components to extend healthful messages beyond the classroom to community settings. Not Our Destiny (www.NotOurDestiny.com) is a complementary intergenerational social marketing campaign that is asset-based and shares stories of health from Native Americans who engage in healthful activities.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time, Other: preventing type 2 Diabetes

Intervention Type: All: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change

Create Better Health Curriculum

The Create Better Health (CBH) Curriculum is a direct education intervention designed to improve the nutrition and physical activity-related knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy of SNAP-Ed eligible adults to lead an active and healthy lifestyle with limited resources. CBH has a unique emphasis on improving food resource management through the use of “Create” concepts. “Create” concepts teach participants how to use foods they already have in their kitchen to create a variety of nourishing meals. CBH includes 8 lessons that are to be offered in a series of 6-8 classes. Nutrition educators are trained regularly to teach CBH classes all of which include a nutrition topic, physical activity discussion, and a hands-on (ideally) cooking demonstration that utilizes a “Create” concept. CBH addresses and evaluates individual level changes including short term readiness and capacity and medium–term changes over the course of a series, as well as long-term changes 6 months after participation in the areas of healthy eating, physical activity, and food resource management. CBH also includes a 1-year follow-up survey to evaluate long-term behavior changes. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time

Intervention Type: Direct Education

iCook 4-H: Cooking, Eating, and Playing Together

The iCook 4-H Program is a direct education intervention designed to reach the following objectives: increase cooking skills and culinary self-efficacy, improve openness to new foods, increase frequency and/or quality of meal time with family members, and decrease sedentary time. It is intended for out-of-school settings with the goal of promoting healthy lifestyles for 9- and 10-year-old youth and the adult who prepares their meals. Grounded in the Social Cognitive Theory, interactions among youth, adults, and leaders provide opportunities for observational learning, reciprocal role modeling, and building self-efficacy.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time, Other: Family engagement/communication and goal setting

Intervention Type: Direct Education

The Children’s Healthy Living (CHL) Program

The Children’s Healthy Living Program (CHL) is a direct education, social marketing, and PSE change intervention designed to help children ages 2-8 in pacific communities decrease sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake, increase water intake, increase fruit and vegetable intake, decrease recreational screen time, increase physical activity, and increase the duration of sleep. The CHL toolkit has 4 functions that partners can choose from: 1) strengthen and implement school wellness policies, 2) partner and advocate for environmental change, 3) promote the CHL message, and 4) train trainers (capacity building) that address healthy behaviors at multiple levels of the social ecological model. Nineteen specific activities are recommended under each of the 4 functions. These activities promote PSE changes through the development of community strengths and interests. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time

Intervention Type: Direct Education, Social Marketing, PSE Change

Fresh Conversations

Fresh Conversations (FC) is a direct education, newsletter-based intervention for seniors. FC targets behaviors known to reduce chronic disease burden and promote healthy aging. It promotes healthier food and beverage choices across food groups to move closer to Dietary Guidelines for Americans (eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, healthy fats—less sodium and added sugars) as well as support functional and active aging by promoting affordable and accessible physical activity strategies guided by the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans older adult recommendations. Participants meet monthly for 30-45 minute interactive sessions led by a trained facilitator. Each participant receives a 4-page newsletter. Facilitators use a companion facilitator guide with behavioral objectives, key nutrition messages, facilitation dialogue, activities and recipe tasting options. Each session is designed to be interactive with a group discussion, goal setting, physical activity discussion, and recipe tasting. Puzzles and games in the newsletter reinforce educational content.

Target Behavior:  Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reducing Screen Time

Intervention Type: Direct Education