Using ethnography to improve intervention design.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this research was to use a three-phase ethnographic approach to examine the range of factors that affect people's decisions about physical activity and diet.


METHODS
We used open-ended data collection strategies, analyzed inductively, to inform, the development of a family intervention.


METHODS
The study was conducted in a small low-income town in Colorado.


METHODS
Families with young children were selected to include social, economic, and ethnic diversity. Twenty-nine of 31 invited families participated (94%).


METHODS
The measures consisted of 21 open-ended interviews in the first phase; 12 semistructured interviews in the second phase, and six home visits in the third phase. The Atlas.ti program25 was used for data analysis.


RESULTS
Significant barriers to regular exercise and good dietary habits were grouped as social/structural (e.g., working parents, costs of exercise) and cultural (e.g., perception that fast food is normal). Behavioral facilitators include disease in the family and community opportunities for exercise. Results revealed family values and dynamics that other methods would have missed.


CONCLUSIONS
These data suggest that families are embedded in a multicomponent "web" of factors that influence diet and physical activity. It is feasible and desirable to use ethnographic methods to discern the interactions of these factors that make each household unique. These results argue for dynamic intervention designs that operate from a broad contextual perspective.
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver, Campus Box 103, PO Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA.
John A
JA
Brett
Jerianne
J
Heimendinger
Carol
C
Boender
Cathy
C
Morin
Julie A
JA
Marshall
D000328:Adult; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D003120:Colorado; D003625:Data Collection; D003657:Decision Making; D004032:Diet / Q000523:psychology*; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012931:Social Environment