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Development of Novel Behavioral Intervention for Sustainable Weight Loss in Hispanic Adults With Obesity

Not Applicable
Terminated
Conditions
Obesity
Interventions
Behavioral: Healthy Weight for Living for Hispanics
Registration Number
NCT03978416
Lead Sponsor
Tufts University
Brief Summary

There are great disparities in the prevalence of obesity and chronic disease in different sociodemographic groups. US Hispanic adults, in particular, have a higher prevalence of obesity and chronic diseases than non-Hispanic whites. Population aging is also a major contributing factor to the high prevalence of chronic disease, and Hispanics already make up approximately 10% of the older population. Therefore, preventive measures are needed to reduce the burden of chronic disease risks for Hispanics. Current lifestyle interventions for weight management have been particularly ineffective in this population.

The purpose of this pilot project is to develop a novel tailored lifestyle intervention for use by Hispanic older adults with obesity. The Healthy Weight for Living intervention has been validated among adults with mixed racial/ethnic backgrounds and has achieved clinically impactful weight-loss. Its design features make it particularly suitable for use in populations with low adherence to traditional interventions, including no requirement for daily food logging and no increase in physical activity.

The final product of this project will be a culturally adapted prototype intervention in Hispanic older adults that accounts for cultural heterogeneity. This work has direct relevance to reducing health disparities and the burden of obesity-associated chronic disease in a particularly at-risk population.

Detailed Description

The scientific premise of this project is that appropriately tailored lifestyle interventions for weight loss can achieve clinically impactful weight loss in Hispanic adults with obesity. Older adults will be the focus, recognizing that requirements for tailoring may vary according to age group. Given that older adults have a higher risk of chronic diseases caused by obesity, there is a great need to focus on factors that disproportionately affect older Hispanic adults. The objective of this project is to tailor a validated lifestyle intervention developed and used by our team in ethnically mixed populations to older Hispanic adults with obesity. This novel intervention does not require food logging or a large increase in physical activity to achieve weight loss, making it more acceptable to population groups with low adherence to traditional interventions. The long-term goal of this work is to create an effective, culturally acceptable, sustainable, and scalable lifestyle weight management program for routine use in Hispanic adults with obesity. Findings from this work will be directly applicable to future community interventions and will be relevant for public health measures in this at-risk population.

The specific aims are:

Aim 1: To conduct focus groups in Hispanic older adults with obesity to identify factors that can be addressed in the tailored intervention. Information will be collected on practical and cultural barriers and promoters of successful weight management, including food access, dietary patterns, physical activity, time and financial constraints, and additional psychosocial and cultural factors.

Hypothesis 1: Malleable dietary and psychosocial targets for weight loss and weight loss maintenance can be identified, including factors such as food cravings, hunger and disinhibited eating that have been shown to be effective targets in other population groups.

Aim 2: To conduct a pilot behavioral intervention of an initially adapted program in Hispanic older adults with obesity. A prototype bilingual English-Spanish lifestyle intervention for weight reduction will be created. The prototype will then be iteratively refined during a series of short-term tests (two tests lasting 4 weeks, followed by a final test lasting 12 weeks) of intervention delivery. In these interventions, % weight loss, % drop-out, and safety benchmarks will be monitored. Participant-reported barriers to adherence identified during group meetings and exit interviews will be targets for improvement in successive iterations.

Hypothesis 2: Successive refinement of the program will result in progressive improvements in mean % weight loss and participant retention.

The final products of this project will be: a) a prototype adapted intervention in older US adults of Hispanic background, accounting for cultural heterogeneity in this population; and b) identification of additional barriers that can be addressed in subsequent iterations of the intervention.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
TERMINATED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
23
Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

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Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

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Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
SEQUENTIAL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Pilot behavioral interventionHealthy Weight for Living for HispanicsA prototype bilingual English-Spanish lifestyle intervention for weight reduction will be created. The prototype will then be iteratively refined during a series of short-term tests with 5 participants per test (two tests lasting 4 weeks, followed by a final test lasting 12 weeks) of intervention delivery.
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Weight changePilot 1 and 2: 4 weeks. Pilot 3: 12 weeks

Change in weight from baseline to the end of the intervention period

Attendance to weekly group meetingsPilot 1 and 2: 4 weeks. Pilot 3: 12 weeks

Adherence will be measured as meeting attendance

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Change in blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)Depending on pilot phase the time frame will be 4 weeks or 12 weeks

Change in systolic and diastolic blood pressure from baseline to the end of the intervention period

Change in waist circumferenceDepending on pilot phase the time frame will be 4 weeks or 12 weeks

Change in waist circumference from baseline to the end of the intervention period

Change in hip circumferenceDepending on pilot phase the time frame will be 4 weeks or 12 weeks

Change in hip circumference from baseline to the end of the intervention period

Themes generated from qualitative dataBaseline, 4 weeks for pilot cycles 1 and 2, and 12 weeks for pilot cycle 3

For the first phase of the study, focus groups will be analyzed and themes on eating behavior and barriers to successful weight management will be identified.

For the intervention phase of the study, exit interviews will be completed at the end of each pilot cycle.

Financial well-beingBaseline

Financial well-being questionnaire (4 items). Financial satisfaction (1 item) Financial difficulty (1 item) Financial control (1 item) Scores are standardized and summed to capture financial well-being. Higher scores indicate more financial well-being.

Dietary intakeBaseline

NHANES Dietary Screener Questionnaire (DSQ, 26 items). The DSQ scoring algorithms developed at the National Cancer Institute will be used to calculate estimated intakes of food groups and certain nutrients: fruits and vegetables (cup equivalents), dairy (cup equivalents), added sugars (teaspoon equivalents), whole grains (ounce equivalents), and fiber (g).

Source: https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/nhanes/dietscreen/scoring/current/#scoring

Dietary behaviorBaseline

Latino Dietary Behaviors Questionnaire (LDBQ, 13 items)

Possible scores:

Health dietary changes score range: 0 to 19 Artificial sweeteners in drinks score range: 0 to 13 Number of meals per day score range: 0 to 6 Fat consumption score range: 0 to 9 Total LDBQ score range (sum of all items): 0 to 47 Lower scores indicate poorer dietary behaviors.

Perceived stressBaseline

Perceived Stress Scale 4 (PSS-4, 4 items) Score range: 0 to 16. Higher scores are correlated to more stress.

Eating behavior (hunger, satiety, cognitive restraint)Baseline

Three factor eating questionnaire (TFEQ, 51 items) Cognitive restraint score range: 0 to 21 Disinhibition score range: 0 to 16 Hunger score range: 0 to 14 Higher scores indicate higher degrees of the particular eating behavior.

AcculturationBaseline

Short Acculturation Scale for Hispanics (SASH, 12 items) Each item response is based on a five-point bipolar scale. Scores are calculated by taking the average rating across all items. Higher scores indicate higher acculturation.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University

🇺🇸

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

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