The Growing Resilience research leverages reservation-based assets of land, family, culture, and front-line tribal health organizations to develop and evaluate home food gardens as a family-based health promotion intervention to reduce disparities suffered by Native Americans in nearly every measure of health. Home gardening interventions show great promise for enabling families to improve their health, and this study aims to fulfill that promise with university and Wind River Indian Reservation partners. The investigators will develop an empowering, scalable, and sustainable family-based health promotion intervention with, by, and for Native American families and conduct the first RCT to assess the health impacts of home gardens.
The intervention is comprised of designing and providing two years of support for home gardens. Families randomized to intervention will receive the following supports and services: 1. Blue Mountain Associates will host a gardening workshop to include crop planning, receipt of customized guides to the crops the family selects (these are currently in development and will be ready by 2015), and hands-on basic skills training (mid-April). CHRs and interested local healthcare providers will also participate in workshops to help them prepare for supporting gardeners. 2. BMA's garden manager and assistant(s) will visit each family to help the family install a garden and will provide the family with all needed supplies (late April to early May). Based on garden harvest measures collected in the Food Dignity project and the large gardens preferred by families in the pilot, the minimum garden size will be 80 sq. ft. with at least 30 sq. ft. devoted to crops other than corn and potatoes. The manager will design at least part of each garden in a way that allows the least physically able family members to participate in gardening. 3. BMA will host a Facebook support and networking group for gardeners, with ARI, BMA, and UW gardening experts providing advice as needed. 4. BMA's staff will visit each gardening family at least twice more during the growing season and will be available throughout the season for phone consultations and Facebook advice. For all years, the BMA garden manager will track actual intervention support provided to each family (e.g., timing and number of visits, training and supplies provided). The University of Wyoming research team will collect health measures before and at the end of each gardening season with gardening and control families for two years, after which the control families also receive the gardening intervention. The investigators anticipate enrolling about 100 families into the study with 400 (half adults, half children) people participating in the health measures.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
338
Two years of financial and technical home gardening support for new gardeners
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming, United States
Adult BMI change
With four data points, every 6 months. Researcher-measured height (stadiometer) and Tanita body composition scale.
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Mental Health change
measured by SF12 survey
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Physical Health change
measured by SF12 survey
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Food security change
measured by sub-set of USDA survey
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Self-efficacy in gardening change
by survey
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Pain change
by survey
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Blood pressure change
researcher-measured with bp monitor
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
hand strength change
researcher-measured with dynamometer
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
waist circumference change
researcher-measured with spring-loaded tape measure
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
beta-carotene change
whole blood draw and assay
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
Hb A1C change
whole blood draw and assay
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
cholesterol change
whole blood draw and assay
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
triglycerides change
whole blood draw and assay
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
vitamin D change
whole blood draw and assay
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
child BMI z-score change
Time frame: Change from baseline at 2 years
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