Latino Researcher Works to Improve Children’s Health in a Latino Farm-Worker Community

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A recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that found that both parents and physicians in the Latino migrant farm-worker community of Immokalee, Fla., were not as concerned with their children being overweight as they were children who were obese.

The study suggested the need for programs that facilitate Latino parents’ interest and action to improve their children’s health.

Who is rising to meet the need?

The author of the study, Dr. Javier Rosado.

Rosado—who conducted the research as grantee of Salud America!, a Latino childhood obesity research network funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and directed by the Institute for Health Promotion Research at The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio—has galvanized a team of medical experts, nutrition educators, soccer and Zumba instructors to create “Salud Immokalee,” a yearlong multidisciplinary program, naplesnews.com reports.

Salud Immokalee aims to help parents and their kids make healthier lifestyle choices.

To encourage healthier behavior, the program’s parents and kids get 18 weeks of classroom instruction and hands-on learning built around three essential elements: nutrition, physical activity and behavior, according to the news report.

Rosado is excited to be able to turn his research into a program that is helping migrant farm workers.

“That is why community-based research is so powerful,” Rosado, an assistant professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine and psychologist at Healthcare Network of Southwest Florida, told naplesnews.com. “You don’t have to wait years to put findings into action.”

Learn more about Dr. Rosado’s Salud America! research here.