Culturally-Based Curriculum

1. Culturally-Based Curriculum Susan Donohue, UCCE Butte County Anna Martin, UCCE San Joaquin County Connie Schneider, UCCE Fresno County

2. How we began Tri-County Childhood Obesity Prevention Project in the Hmong Population

3. Objectives • Adapt the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) core curriculum. • Increase culturally sensitivity • Develop tools to for positive lifestyle behaviors. • Address childhood obesity in Northern California Hmong communities through parent education.

4. What we did (2005-2006) • Conducted focus groups and individual interviews • Recruited and trained Hmong community members • Partnered with local agencies for Hmong classes • Maintained close contact with Hmong extenders

5. Our results Adapted & pilot tested 4 lessons Graduated 180 Hmong families

6. What we learned • Vegetables consumed, but not a variety. • Fruit a luxury, especially • when elders lived with the family. • Intake of dairy products remained low. • Activities and monitoring tools required additional cultural adaptation • Snacking not a common practice. • Younger generation snacked more often.

7. Our Impacts • 95% showed improvement in at least one nutrition practice • 87% showed improvement in at least one food resource management activity • 78% showed improvement in at least one food safety practice

8. Hmong Healthy Families Project • Improve education techniques to parents of young Hmong children: • to begin healthy habits early to promote optimum growth and development • prevent obesity

9. Objectives • Identified nutrition and health issues of Hmong parents of young children. • Determined if “Creating Healthy Families” Parent Tip Sheets messages were meaningful and appropriate. • Adapted healthy eating and physical activity messages to be culturally appropriate. • Field tested the materials.

10. We revisited issues from previous study • Designed questions to elicit • patterns of food preparation, views on health issues, overweight, “healthy” foods, physical activity, children’s and parent’s roles in food selection and methods for health education • Conducted in-depth focus groups with 51parents • Tested translated EFNEP Food Behavior Checklists and materials.

11. Themes • Eating together is important/difficult to do • Physical activity is important/good for children and the family • Walking was most frequently cited exercise among adults

12. Concerns • Children do not always like the same foods as parents • attributed to being exposed to American foods • Children like to eat a lot of sweets • Tap water perceived unhealthy

13. Conclusions • Language: major challenge in communication of concepts & words as English does not directly translate into Hmong • Many Hmong adults and elders are not literate in either Hmong or English • Special cultural considerations must be addressed in dealing with the issues of overweight and health with Hmong

14. What our findings meant • Lesson plans and handouts were revised • Evaluation measures needed revision • Produced a draft DVD Three key messages: • increase physical activity • how to plan and shop more effectively • how to make healthier choices by reading labels

15. Our Next Steps • Curriculum completed (8 lessons) • Evaluation measures refined • Tri-State Pilot Testing • California, Wisconsin, Minnesota

16. Appreciation to our Collaborators • San Joaquin, Butte, and Fresno UCCE Staff & Community Partners • P. Wakimoto • M. Fujii • Barbara Sutherland • L. Kaiser • UC ANR Health Promotion Workgroup

17. Appreciation to our Funders • UC ANR Core Issues Grants • NIH Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Grant Center • California Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program