The Impact of a Parenting Intervention on Latino Youth Health Behaviors
The Impact of a Parenting Intervention on Latino Youth Health Behaviors
The purpose of this study is to test if a parenting program can be used to prevent substance
 use among Latino youth and at the same time promote healthy eating. Pairs of 7th grade
 students and one of their parents will be enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to
 three groups: an existing parenting intervention focusing on substance use prevention (FPNG),
 the enhanced parenting intervention that also has nutrition content (FPNG+), and a comparison
 program focused on academic success. Only parents will attend intervention sessions. Data
 will be collected from the parent and their 7th grade student to see how these programs
 impacted substance use, nutrition, and parenting. The investigators hypothesize that families
 receiving the FPNG+ will have improved nutrition habits than the other conditions. Students
 in both FPNG and FPNG+ will have lower substance use rates as compared to the academic
 success program. In addition, the effects of parenting strategies and sociocultural factors
 on the FPNG and FPNG+ results will be studied.
Latino youth are a population at risk for chronic diseases because of their growing
 overweight and obesity rates, lack of adherence to nutrition and physical activity
 recommendations, and greater rates of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs use than youth of
 other ethnic groups. Parents are an important agent of change for youth due to their ability
 to create a home environment that promotes healthful behaviors (including substance use
 prevention and healthy nutrition), and parents' role as providers of resources to the family
 (including food). Parenting interventions are efficacious in preventing substance use among
 Latino youth, but few studies have used a family approach to promote healthy nutrition. Thus,
 the overall objective of the proposed project is to extend the scope of Families Preparing
 the New Generation (FPNG), an existing parenting program proven to help reduce substance use
 among Latino youth, to also promote healthy nutrition. The eco-developmental perspective will
 provide the theoretical foundation for the project for investigating risk and resiliency in
 Latino youth's drug use and nutrition behaviors. The main aims of the study are to (1) test
 the effects of a nutrition-enhanced parenting program (FPNG+) on substance use and nutrition
 among Latino youth, (2) explore how enhancing parenting skills impact the effects of the
 enhanced intervention, and (3) understand how social and cultural factors impact how the
 enhanced program works. The research team will first seek input from community members to
 create a nutrition-enhanced program that is acceptable to Latino parents of middle school
 students. The investigators will then collaborate with the American Dream Academy (ADA), an
 organization delivering an academic success program to families within middle schools
 throughout the Phoenix Area, to recruit 1,494 families who have a student in 7th grade to
 participate in the study. Parents from different schools will be offered one of three 10-week
 programs (assigned to each individual school): FPNG+ (substance use prevention and healthy
 nutrition), FPNG (substance use prevention only), and the ADA comparison program (focusing on
 academic success). Data will be collected from the 7th grade student and his/her
 participating parent before the start of the program, immediately after it ends, and 16 weeks
 later, to compare how the programs affect nutrition, substance use, and parenting. In a
 subgroup of 126 families (42 from each program), investigators will explore how the FPNG+
 program affects diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors and whether the program induces
 changes in the types of foods available at participants' homes. For this, investigators will
 collect capillary blood samples from participants to measure glycosylated hemoglobin (a
 marker of diabetes risk) and cholesterol (a marker of cardiovascular risk), and blood
 pressure, as well as a list of foods that participants have at home. The long-term goal is to
 design and disseminate programs that contribute to helping parents assist their adolescent
 children develop and maintain long-lasting positive lifestyle behaviors in order to prevent
 substance use and chronic diseases.
Inclusion criteria:

 -  Youth: ages 12-14

 -  Youth: Enrolled in 6th,7th, or 8th grade at the time of recruitment from the American
 Dream Academy (ADA) programs

 -  Adults: Age 18 or older

 -  Adults: Parent/caregiver/guardian of an eligible youth

 Exclusion Criteria: None