Adapting and Assessing the Feasibility Of 'Healthy Dads Healthy Kids' For US Latinos

This is a feasibility study of a culturally adapted version of Healthy Dads Healthy Kids for Hispanic families, called Papás Saludables, Niños Saludables. It is a father-targeted program for child obesity prevention and weight loss for fathers. The feasibility study will be conducted with 40 Hispanic families at a large community pediatric clinic serving children with Medicaid or CHIP. Enrollment will include fathers, their 5-11 year old child(ren) and their co-parent (e.g. mother) as a family unit (anticipate 160 individuals). Fathers and their child(ren) will be the primary target in the study, but mothers also participate, if available. Multiple children per family can enroll if they meet the inclusion/exclusion criteria, but families will be encouraged to limit the number of children who participate to no more than three. Fathers will be screened for their health to participate in the physical activity portion of the study and whether they meet inclusion/exclusion criteria. The health screening will follow the 2015 updated American College of Sport Medicine exercise pre-participation screening protocol. Fathers who otherwise qualify, but do not pass the health screener will be provided a letter to be seen by their PCP to obtain clearance for exercise participation. If they do not have a PCP they will be instructed to contact their health insurance for a list of doctors and if they do not have health insurance, a list of sliding scale clinics will be provided.

Once screened, consented and enrolled, baseline data will be collected on the fathers, children and mothers. Data assessments include demographics, height, weight, and waist circumference on fathers and children, blood pressure and heart rate on fathers, physical activity and sleep on fathers and children (as measured by wearing accelerometers for 5-7 days), screen media use by survey questions of fathers and children, dietary intake on fathers and children (by food frequency questionnaires), food and physical activity parenting practices, co-parenting alliance scale, acculturation (Bi-Acculturation Scale), respeto (Respect sub-scale from the Mexican-American Cultural Values scale) and Pan-American familism scale on fathers and mothers. Mothers, if available, will be asked to assist the child in completing their questionnaires. If the family consists of a single father, he will assist the child in completing their questionnaires. Fathers and children will be instructed in wearing their accelerometer and told to wear it 24 hours/day for the next 7 days, only taking it off when there is potential for getting it wet (e.g. bathing, showering, swimming). Study staff will remind the father and child to wear their monitor by text, email or phone call (depending on family preference) several times during week. Accelerometers and wear logs can be returned at the clinic or by prepaid envelope provided by the study. Once received back, accelerometer data will be reviewed for completeness (minimum of 8 hours/day for 5 days including 2 weekend days). If accelerometer data is not complete, the father and/or child will be given the option to wear the monitor for additional days to complete the data.

After baseline data are collected, families will be stratified into preferred language of program (English or Spanish) and randomly assigned to receive the program immediately (Intervention Group, N=20) or after a 5-7 month wait list period (Wait-list Control group, N=20).

After the 10 session program is completed, post-assessment data will be collected on all 40 families in the same way as described for the baseline data collection. In addition, fathers, mothers and children who took part in the Papás Saludables, Niños Saludables program will be asked to complete a satisfaction survey. Families who were assigned to the control group will start the program after the second data collection. Data collection on the wait-list control group will only consist of weight, height, and satisfaction survey.

Exit interviews of a sub-sample of fathers, mothers and children each who took part in the Papás Saludables, Niños Saludables program will be conducted. The interviews will be audio-recorded and coded for themes.