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Project New Life-Good Health
Nueva Vida-Buena Salud
Executive Summary
The purpose of Project New Life-Good Health (Nueva Vida-Buena Salud) is to develop and implement a community-engaged nutrition and health education program targeting recently arrived Latino immigrant families residing in Hillsborough County. The project is slated to begin January 2002 and ending in December 2004.
This project will use social learning theory to teach families about health eating and disease prevention. At the same time, parent and family skill building will be emphasized through the use of interactive activities (i.e., Nutrition Jeopardy game, cooking demonstrations, puppet shows) dealing with food and nutrition issues (e.g., hunger, poor quality diet, and nutritional-related diseases such as obesity and diabetes). In addition a community empowerment model will be used to facilitate nutritional self-efficacy and self-sufficiency.
The process objectives and activities for Project New Life-Good Health will include Healthy Eating and Disease Prevention Seminars for families and special topic seminars for adults (i.e., child nutrition and nutrition for older adults), teens (i.e., body image and eating disorders), and individuals with nutrition-related diseases (e.g., diabetes). Additionally, a church-based farmerŐs market will be developed with the assistance of a community advisory group, which will provide fresh produce to community members and nutrition education presentations.
Expected outcomes include increased food and nutrition knowledge (e.g., understanding of the food guide pyramid and food labels), increased self-efficacy (i.e., willingness to engage in behaviors that promote individual and family nutritional health), and increased self-sufficiency (e.g., improving community access to a healthy diet). An evaluation will be conducted to measure project efficacy and participant satisfaction.
The community partners in Project New Life-Good Health include the Center for Family Health (applicant organization in charge of fiscal management); University of South Florida, Department of Anthropology (in charge of curriculum development, service provision and evaluation); the Hispanic Services Council (recruitment and space provision) and the San Francisco Methodist Church (provider of space for the farmers market).