A web-based, health promotion program for adolescent girls and their mothers who reside in public housing.
This study tested a brief web-based, family-involvement health promotion program aimed at drug use, physical activity, and nutrition for adolescent girls, aged 10 to 12 years, who reside in public housing. Separately, girls (n=67) and their mothers (n=67) completed baseline measures online. Following baseline, 36 randomly assigned mother-daughter dyads jointly completed a 3-session, health promotion program online. Subsequently, all girls and mothers separately completed posttest and 5-month follow-up measures. Attrition at posttest and 5-month follow-up measures was 3% and 9%, respectively. At posttest, intervention-arm girls, relative to control-arm girls, reported greater mother-daughter communication and parental monitoring. Intervention-arm mothers reported greater mother-daughter communication and closeness as well as increased vegetable intake and physical activity. At 5-month follow-up, intervention-arm girls and mothers, relative to those in the control arm, reported greater levels of parental monitoring. Intervention-arm girls also reported greater mother-daughter communication and closeness, reduced stress, greater refusal skills, and increased fruit intake. Findings indicate the potential of a brief, web-based program to improve the health of low-income girls and their mothers.
Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA. Electronic address: tms40@columbia.edu.
Traci M
TM
Schwinn
Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Steven
S
Schinke
University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, 246 Bloor St. West, Toronto, ON M5S 1V4, Canada.
Lin
L
Fang
Columbia University School of Social Work, 1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Suganthi
S
Kandasamy
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011638:Public Housing; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
Family-based; Gender-specific; Health-promotion; Public housing; Web-based