Home > Faculty Collaboration >The Rodney F. Ganey, Ph.D. Collaborative Community-Based Research Mini-Grant>Mini-Grant Recipients 2009
“Personalized Information Technology Interventions and Their Role in Teen Obesity Management”
Corey Angst
Assistant Professor, Management
Elizabeth Moore
Associate Professor, Marketing
Joyce Dunfee
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Psychology
Bethany Cockburn
Visiting Assistant Professional Specialist, Management
Lesley Craft
St. Josepth County Health Department
Dr. Kenneth Elek
Memorial Family Medicine
Lauren Gamboa
Class of 2009
Obesity is a growing health epidemic among American teenagers. Twelve and a half million children are overweight, and at risk for adverse health effects including hypertension and diabetes.
The aim of this study is to determine the extent to which personalized information technology interventions can affect attitudes and behaviors about managing obesity and impact measured body mass index (BMT) in an underserved population of adolescents in the city of South Bend. A selection of underserved adolescents who either have a high BMI (considered obese) or are “at-risk” of obesity will be obtained from Memorial Family Medicine. Over six months, researchers will collect self-report and clinically measured data from subjects who have been randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Interventions are text messaging, text and social network invitation, and traditional brochure-based obesity management literature.
The results of the project will help Memorial Family Medicine and the St. Joseph County Health Department to discover which programs would best serve their adolescent population. They will also enable further insight into the role that technology can play in community-based health care.
“Building Leaders, Framing Injustice: Religious Networks, Grassroots Organizing, and Latino Integration”
Daniel J. Myers
Professor, Sociology & Associate Dean, Research Graduate Studies and Centers
Juan Carlos Guzman
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Institute for Latino Studies
Rev. Christopher Cox, C.S.C.
Rev. John DeRiso, C.S.C.
Pat Frazier
Jesusa Rodriguez
Laura Vasquez
Rev. Nathan Wills, C.S.C.
Transforming Action through Power (TAP)
Elizabeth E. Martinez
Graduate Student, Sociology
Social movements, aimed at positive social change, usually form within existing networks, especially religious networks. Yet, it is not clear the steps that people within religious networks should take to foster such movements.
This study will look at a local movement, made up of a network of churches in South Bend referred to as TAP (Transforming Action through Power), to identify specific pathways toward social justice, leadership and integration for Latinos in South Bend. Researchers will conduct “before” interviews with four emerging civil rights leaders, engage in participant observation in “fellowship” meetings attended by the emerging leaders at seven local churches, and conduct “after” interviews when the leaders have returned from a leadership training experience in Chicago.
The investigation will be able to target the key processes that facilitate Latino leadership and general integration in the South Bend-Mishawaka metropolitan region, as well as provide the area with trained Latino leaders. The study will make critical contributions to social movements’ literature.
“Reaching Out to Urban Adolescents through Sports: A Collaboration with the South Bend Police Department”
F. Clark Power
Professor, Program of Liberal Studies & Program Director, Play Like A Champion Today
Kristin Sheehan
Associate Director, Institute for Educational Initiatives
Harold Swanagan
Operations Coordinator, Athletic Department
Chief Darryl Boykins
South Bend Police Department, Boxing Club
How can urban neighborhood-based sports program foster adolescents’ character development and promote their vocational plans? Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives’ Play Like A Champion Today program and the Notre Dame Athletic Department will collaborate with South Bend Police Chief Darryl Boykins’ local sports outreach program to investigate how participation in the Boykins’ program influences the participants’ plans and preparation for post-secondary education and character development.
A team of approximately 10 Notre Dame students and student-athletes will serve as participant-researchers coaching and mentoring approximately 100 youth as they make observations and collect interview data with the youth served by the programs as well as with their parents, program leaders, coaches, and program graduates. The interviews will assess the perceived benefits and challenges of involvement in the Boykins’ program as well as the opportunities that the program provides for personal and vocational development. With the research and mentoring assistance that this collaborative project will provide, Chief Boykins’ character-oriented program will become a model for youth sports in South Bend and in distressed urban neighborhoods across the country.
