Acculturation, physical activity and television viewing in Hispanic women: findings from the 2005 California Women's Health Survey

Objective—To assess the relationship of acculturation with physical activity and sedentary behaviours among Hispanic women in California. Design—Data from the 2005 California Women's Health Survey (CWHS) – a cross-sectional telephonic survey of health indicators and health-related behaviours and attitudes – were used. Setting—Using a random-digit dialling process, data were collected monthly from January to December 2005. Subjects—A total of 1298 women aged ≥18 years in California who self-identified as Hispanic. Results—Of the participants included in the analysis, 49% were adherent to physical activity recommendations (with 150 min of weekly activity signifying adherence). There was no significant association between language acculturation and moderate or vigorous physical activity after controlling for potential confounders such as smoking, age and employment status. There was also no association between duration of residence in the USA and moderate or vigorous physical activity. Language acculturation was positively associated with television (TV) viewing, with highly acculturated women reporting more hours of TV viewing compared with women with an intermediate acculturation score (P=0.0001), and those with an intermediate score reporting more hours of TV viewing compared with those with a low score (P=0.003). This relationship persisted after inclusion of smoking, employment status, age and education in the model. Conclusions—Higher levels of language acculturation may be associated with increased sedentary behaviours because of the influence of US culture on those women who have assimilated to the culture. Acculturation is an important factor to be taken into account when designing health education interventions for the Hispanic female population

UCCE efforts improve quality of and demand for fresh produce at WIC A-50 stores

In 2005, the Institute of Medicine recommended major revisions in the food packages provided by the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), leading to new regulations that allow participants to purchase a wide variety of fruits and vegetables with their vouchers. In support of this policy change, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension (UCCE) developed educational materials to promote fresh produce among WIC participants and offered postharvest handling training at WIC-only stores, known as A-50 vendors, in order to improve produce quality. A survey conducted after the educational sessions found that WIC participants had increased knowledge of produce and A-50 vendors showed improved postharvest handling after the education sessions. This research demonstrates that combining nutrition education with postharvest handling curriculum can lead to a successful educational program that supports increased demand among WIC participants for fresh produce

Using Qualitative Methods to Improve Questionnaires for Spanish Speakers: Assessing Face Validity of a Food Behavior Checklist

Development of outcome measures relevant to health nutrition behaviors requires a rigorous process of testing and revision. Whereas researchers often report performance of quantitative data collection to assess questionnaire validity and reliability, qualitative testing procedures are often overlooked. This report outlines a procedure for assessing face validity of a Spanish-language dietary assessment tool. Reviewing the literature produced no rigorously validated Spanish-language food behavior assessment tools for the US Department of Agriculture’s food assistance and education programs. In response to this need, this study evaluated the face validity of a Spanish-language food behavior checklist adapted from a 16-item English version of a food behavior checklist shown to be valid and reliable for limited-resource English speakers. The English version was translated using rigorous methods involving initial translation by one party and creation of five possible versions. Photos were modified based on client input and new photos were taken as necessary. A sample of low-income, Spanish-speaking women completed cognitive interviews (n=20). Spanish translation experts (n=7) fluent in both languages and familiar with both cultures made minor modifications but essentially approved client preferences. The resulting checklist generated a readability score of 93, indicating low reading difficulty. The Spanish-language checklist has adequate face validity in the target population and is ready for further validation using convergent measures. At the conclusion of testing, this instrument may be used to evaluate nutrition education interventions in California. These qualitative procedures provide a framework for designing evaluation tools for low-literate audiences participating in the US Department of Agriculture food assistance and education programs

A three-year multifaceted intervention to prevent obesity in children of Mexican-heritage.

BackgroundObesity and overweight have increased dramatically in the United States over the last decades. The complexity of interrelated causal factors that result in obesity needs to be addressed within the cultural dynamic of sub-populations. In this study, we sought to estimate the effects of a multifaceted, community-based intervention on body mass index (BMI) among Mexican-heritage children.MethodsNiños Sanos, Familia Sana (Healthy Children, Healthy Family) was a quasi-experimental intervention study designed to reduce the rate of BMI growth among Mexican-heritage children in California's Central Valley. Two rural communities were matched based on demographic and environmental characteristics and were assigned as the intervention or comparison community. The three-year intervention included parent workshops on nutrition and physical activity; school-based nutrition lessons and enhanced physical education program for children; and a monthly voucher for fruits and vegetables. Eligible children were between 3 and 8 years old at baseline. Intent-to-treat analyses were estimated using linear mixed-effect models with random intercepts. We ran a series of models for each gender where predictors were fixed except interactions between age groups and obesity status at baseline with intervention to determine the magnitude of impact on BMI.ResultsAt baseline, mean (SD) BMI z-score (zBMI) was 0.97 (0.98) in the intervention group (n = 387) and 0.98 (1.02) in the comparison group (n = 313) (NS). The intervention was significantly associated with log-transformed BMI (β = 0.04 (0.02), P = 0.03) and zBMI (β = 0.25 (0.12), P = 0.04) among boys and log-transformed BMI among obese girls (β = - 0.04 (0.02), P = 0.04). The intervention was significantly and inversely associated with BMI in obese boys and girls across all age groups and normal weight boys in the oldest group (over 6 years) relative to their counterparts in the comparison community.ConclusionsA community-based, multifaceted intervention was effective at slowing the rate of BMI growth among Mexican-heritage children. Our findings suggest that practitioners should consider strategies that address gender disparities and work with a variety of stakeholders to target childhood obesity.Trial registrationclinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01900613 . Registered 16th July 2013

The Impact of the California Drought on Food Security among Rural Families of Mexican Origin

Introduction: The year 2015 marks the fourth year of a drought in California. With no signs of the drought improving, communities in California are left to prioritize their water usage. In the Central Valley, the limited water supply has forced farmers to prioritize on acreage and planting, decisions that trickle down and may impact farmworker families. Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a drought in California on family decision-making and coping strategies in the context of broader community changes affecting rural families of Mexican-origin. Methods: This study recruited participants from the Niños Sanos, Familia Sana (NSFS, Healthy Children, Healthy Family) childhood obesity intervention study, conducted from 2011-2015. The primary occupation of two-thirds of the NSFS families was agricultural work. Based on the US Department of Agriculture 18-item food security assessment tool, a baseline household survey among 336 families in 2012 revealed that 45% of the households were food insecure. In 2015, a bilingual graduate student moderated four focus groups in a convenience sample of 26 NSFS families, who were recruited by promotoras (local lay workers). Males and females were assigned to different focus group discussions, each of which lasted 1 ½ hours. Two researchers reviewed transcriptions of the audio recordings and analyzed them for emerging themes. Results/Conclusions: In this Mexican-origin rural population, households headed by less educated mothers, older fathers, and adults engaged in farm work were most vulnerable to food insecurity. The focus groups revealed community changes including out-migration of families, increased food prices, and changes in employment (fewer hours, less predictable, need to travel further to find work). These changes have led families to shift their family decision-making and economize to cope with the unpredictable nature of the agricultural workforce. Paying bills and rent takes priority over food, clothing, medicine and other expenses. All groups mentioned having to deny child requests and family outings. Women noted increased stress on the family and concern about keeping families together. Men expressed the desire to avoid disruption to their children’s lives but were actively considering moving elsewhere. As a community, they have remained united and working together to withstand the challenges the drought has introduced

Comparison of the VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey with the Munich semi-analytical model. II. The colour-density relation up to z=1.5

[Abridged] We perform on galaxy mock catalogues the same colour-density analysis made by Cucciati et al. (2006) on a 5 Mpc/h scale using the VVDS-Deep survey, and compare the results from mocks with observed data. We use mocks with the same flux limits (I=24) as the VVDS (CMOCKS), built using the semi- analytic model by De Lucia & Blaizot (2007) applied to the Millennium Simulation. From CMOCKS, we extracted samples of galaxies mimicking the VVDS observational strategy (OMOCKS). We computed the B-band Luminosity Function LF and the colour-density relation (CDR) in the mocks. We find that the LF in mocks roughly agrees with the observed LF, but at z<0.8 the faint-end slope of the model LF is steeper than the VVDS one. Computing the LF for early and late type galaxies, we show that mocks have an excess of faint early-type and of bright late-type galaxies with respect to data. We find that the CDR in OMOCKS is in excellent agreement with the one in CMOCKS. At z~0.7, the CDR in mocks agrees with the VVDS one (red galaxies reside mainly in high densities). Yet, the strength of the CDR in mocks does not vary within 0.2<z<1.5, while the observed relation flattens with increasing z and possibly inverts at z=1.3. We argue that the lack of evolution in the CDR in mocks is not due only to inaccurate prescriptions for satellite galaxies, but that also the treatment of central galaxies has to be revised. The reversal of the CDR can be explained by wet mergers between young galaxies, producing a starburst event. This should be seen on group scales. A residual of this is found in observations at z=1.5 on larger scales, but not in the mocks, suggesting that the treatment of physical processes affecting satellites and central galaxies in models should be revised.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&

The fraction of early-type galaxies in low redshift groups and clusters of galaxies

We examine the fraction of early-type (and spiral) galaxies found in groups and clusters of galaxies as a function of dark matter halo mass. We use morphological classifications from the Galaxy Zoo project matched to halo masses from both the C4 cluster catalogue and the Yang et al (2007) group catalogue. We find that the fraction of early-type (or spiral) galaxies remains constant (changing by less than 10%) over three orders of magnitude in halo mass (13<log MH/Msol/h<15.8). This result is insensitive to our choice of halo mass measure, from velocity dispersions or summed optical luminosity. Furthermore, we consider the morphology-halo mass relations in bins of galaxy stellar mass M*, and find that while the trend of constant fraction remains unchanged, the early-type fraction amongst the most massive galaxies (11<log M*/Msol/h <12) is a factor of three greater than lower mass galaxies (10<logM*/Msol/h<10.7). We compare our observational results with those of simulations presented in De Lucia et al (2011), as well as previous observational analyses, and semi-analytic bulge (or disc) dominated galaxies from the Millennium Simulation. We find the simulations recover similar trends as observed, but may over-predict the abundances of the most massive bulge dominated (early-type) galaxies. Our results suggest that most morphological transformation is happening on the group scale before groups merge into massive clusters. However, we show that within each halo a morphology-density relation remains: it is summing the total fraction to a self-similar scaled radius which results in a flat morphology-halo mass relationship.Comment: 9 page, 5 figures, modified to match accepted version (MNRAS

UC Cooperative Extension explores a farm-to-WIC program

To increase fruit and vegetable consumption, the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) distributes cash vouchers to low-income women with children to buy fruits and vegetables. The program reaches almost half of the infants and one-quarter of children under 5 years old in the United States. UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) conducted a survey of produce preferences and buying habits among WIC participants in Tulare, Alameda and Riverside counties in 2010 to guide the development of a farm-to-WIC program that would connect small local growers to the WIC market. Based on the results, the UCCE team developed a list of 19 produce items to promote in a possible new farm-to-WIC program

Weak lensing mass reconstructions of the ESO Distant Cluster Survey

We present weak lensing mass reconstructions for the 20 high-redshift clusters i n the ESO Distant Cluster Survey. The weak lensing analysis was performed on deep, 3-color optical images taken with VLT/FORS2, using a composite galaxy catalog with separate shape estimators measured in each passband. We find that the EDisCS sample is composed primarily of clusters that are less massive than t hose in current X-ray selected samples at similar redshifts, but that all of the fields are likely to contain massive clusters rather than superpositions of low mass groups. We find that 7 of the 20 fields have additional massive structures which are not associated with the clusters and which can affect the weak lensing mass determination. We compare the mass measurements of the remaining 13 clusters with luminosity measurements from cluster galaxies selected using photometric redshifts and find evidence of a dependence of the cluster mass-to-light ratio with redshift. Finally we determine the noise level in the shear measurements for the fields as a function of exposure time and seeing and demonstrate that future ground-based surveys which plan to perform deep optical imaging for use in weak lensing measurements must achieve point-spread functions smaller than a median of 0.6" FWHM.Comment: 35 pages, 24 figures, accepted to A&A, a version with better figure resolution can be found at http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/ediscs/papers.htm

Evolution of the Early-Type Galaxy Fraction in Clusters since z = 0.8

We study the morphological content of a large sample of high-redshift clusters to determine its dependence on cluster mass and redshift. Quantitative morphologies are based on bulge+disk decompositions of cluster and field galaxies on deep VLT/FORS2 images of 18 optically-selected clusters at 0.45 < z < 0.80 from the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (EDisCS). Morphological content is given by the early-type galaxy fraction f_et, and early-type galaxies are selected based on their bulge fraction and image smoothness. A set of 158 SDSS clusters is analyzed exactly as the EDisCS sample to provide a robust local comparison. Our main results are: (1) f_et values for the SDSS and EDisCS clusters exhibit no clear trend as a function of sigma. (2) Mid-z EDisCS clusters around sigma = 500 km/s have f_et ~= 0.5 whereas high-z EDisCS clusters have f_et ~= 0.4 (~25% increase over 2 Gyrs). (3) There is a marked difference in the morphological content of EDisCS and SDSS clusters. None of the EDisCS clusters have f_et greater than 0.6 whereas half of the SDSS clusters lie above this value. This difference is seen in clusters of all velocity dispersions. (4) There is a strong correlation between morphology and star formation in SDSS and EDisCS clusters. This correlation holds independent of sigma and z even though the fraction of [OII] emitters decreases from z~0.8 to z~0.06 in all environments. Our results pose an interesting challenge to structural transformation and star formation quenching processes that strongly depend on the global cluster environment and suggest that cluster membership may be of lesser importance than other variables in determining galaxy properties. (ABRIDGED)Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&