# Multi-Level Effects of a Parenting Intervention for Enhancing Latino Youth Health Behaviors

> **NIH NIH U54** · ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS · 2020 · $418,891

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Latino youth are a population at risk for chronic diseases because of their growing overweight and obesity
rates, lack of adherence to nutrition and physical activity recommendations, and greater rates of tobacco,
alcohol and other drugs use than youth of other ethnic groups. Parents are an important agent of change for
youth due to their ability to create a home environment that promotes healthful behaviors (including substance
use prevention and healthy nutrition), and parents' role as providers of resources to the family (including food).
Parenting interventions are efficacious in preventing substance use among Latino youth, but few studies have
used a family approach to promote healthy nutrition. Thus, the overall objective of the proposed project is to
extend the scope of Families Preparing the New Generation (FPNG), an existing parenting program proven to
help reduce substance use among Latino youth, to also promote healthy nutrition. The ecodevelopmental
perspective will provide the theoretical foundation for the project for investigating risk and resiliency in Latino
youth's drug use and nutrition behaviors. Our main aims are to (1) test the effects of a nutrition-enhanced
parenting program (FPNG+) on substance use and nutrition among Latino youth, (2) explore how enhancing
parenting skills impact the effects of the enhanced intervention, and (3) understand how social and cultural
factors impact how the enhanced program works. We will first seek input from community members to create a
nutrition-enhanced program that is acceptable to Latino parents of middle school students. We will then
collaborate with the American Dream Academy (ADA), an organization delivering an academic success
program to families within middle schools throughout the Phoenix Area, to recruit 1,494 families who have a
student in 7th grade to participate in the study. Parents from different schools will be offered one of three 10-
week programs (assigned to each individual school): FPNG+ (substance use prevention and healthy nutrition),
FPNG (substance use prevention only), and the ADA comparison program (focusing on academic success).
We will collect data from the 7th grade student and his/her participating parent before the start of the program,
immediately after it ends, and 16 weeks later, to compare how the programs affect nutrition, substance use,
and parenting. In a subgroup of 126 families (42 from each program), we will explore how the FPNG+ program
affects diabetes and cardiovascular risk factors and whether the program induces changes in the types of
foods available at participants' homes. For this, we will collect capillary blood samples from participants to
measure glycosylated hemoglobin (a marker of diabetes risk) and cholesterol (a marker of cardiovascular risk),
and blood pressure, as well as a list of foods that participants have at home. Our long-term goal is to design
and disseminate programs that contribute to helping parents assi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9928308
- **Project number:** 5U54MD002316-14
- **Recipient organization:** ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY-TEMPE CAMPUS
- **Principal Investigator:** Sonia Vega-Lopez
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $418,891
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9928308

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9928308, Multi-Level Effects of a Parenting Intervention for Enhancing Latino Youth Health Behaviors (5U54MD002316-14). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9928308. Licensed CC0.

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