Journal Club 4: Tu Salud! Si Cuenta! Your Health Matters! A Community-Wide Campaign in a Hispanic Border Community in Texas

(Recorded 2/26/18)

Speakers: Natalia Heredia, MPH, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston & Belinda Reininger, PhD, The University of Texas Health Science Center

In this presentation, we will describe the community-wide campaign that was delivered in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Tu Salud ¡Si Cuenta! (Your Health Matters!). This campaign included multiple components, such as a newsletter, TV and radio segments, and a community health worker, all intended to improve diet and increase physical activity. We will describe the measures and methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign on healthy and unhealthy foods, hip and waist circumference, and physical activity and conclude by detailing the results of the campaign.

Learning Objectives

Describe the development, content, and implementation of Tu Salud ¡Si Cuenta! (Your Health Matters!) community-wide campaign

Explain the methods and measures for evaluating the campaign

Detail the anthropometric, nutrition and physical activity results from the evaluation of the campaign

Natalia Heredia, MPH, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

Natalia I. Heredia is a doctoral candidate in Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences at the UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston with an excepted May 2018 graduation. She is also a research coordinator and a predoctoral fellow on a National Cancer Institute Fellowship. Ms. Heredia’s dissertation work focuses on individual- and community-level interventions to increase physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption, as well as the interplay between these two energy balance-related behaviors.

Belinda Reininger, PhD, The University of Texas Health Science Center

Belinda M. Reininger is a Professor in the Department of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health in Brownsville. Dr. Reininger designs and examines the effectiveness of interventions based on behavioral theory and the Ecological Model to improve health outcomes associated with obesity and related chronic diseases among Mexican Americans. Her research interests include community-based participatory research and Hispanic health, with a particular emphasis on obesity, diet, physical activity and chronic disease prevention and management. Dr. Reininger has served as principal investigator for several projects focused on the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.