September 2008-September 2009 Grantees

PI Name: Sandra Ramey, PhD, RN

Project Title: Obesity in Law Enforcement Officers

Dept/College: College of Nursing

Abstract: This project will conduct an exploratory study of Iowa City, Coralville and University of Iowa police officers  to obtain preliminary data on the relationship among work place organizational stress, HPA axis activation measured by cortisol reactivity, emotional eating, fat mass and fat mass distribution, considering potential confounding or moderating factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. This cross-sectional study will recruit 50 law enforcement officers, ages 21-65.  Participation will involve completion of paper and pencil measures of occupational stress, detailed medical and lifestyle interview, emotional eating questionnaire, salivary cortisol, and total fat mass and fat mass distribution as measured by dual energy x-ray absorptiometery (DXA).

The intent is to: determine effect sizes and direction for use in future sample size calculations; demonstrate the ability to recruit and retain participants in rural police communities; and establish feasibility of the protocol complicated by collection of multiple biological and psychosocial measures.

PI Name: Gerard Rushton, PhD

Project Title: Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis in Community Context: Integrating Geographic Information Science and Community Engagement for Colorectal Cancer Prevention and Control

Dept/College: Department of Geography

Abstract: This work will explore the ways in which communities can connect their experiential knowledge of space and place with observed spatial patterns of disease to increase our abilities to both understand underlying processes and implement effective interventions.  We seek to develop and test new methods for integrating observed patterns of disease with community knowledge, validate these methods through generation of new knowledge and hypotheses about processes that have produced cancer patterns, translate this new knowledge into potential interventions, generate much needed recommendations for best practices in research that integrates Geographic Information Science (GISc) and community engagement, and generate new hypotheses for future research.  Methods include the creation of continuous surface representation maps of cancer burdens and screening rates using adaptive spatial filtering and a community-based project in which community members will explore and annotate these cancer burden map layers.  Community mapping, concept mapping, and participant observation/community walk-throughs are used.

PI Name: Kerry McGannon, PhD

Project Title:  Understanding Gender differences Across Life Stages in Physical Activity Participation from a Social Ecological Perspective: A Qualitative Study

Dept/College: Department of Health and Sport Studies

Abstract: The study of rural men’s and women’s physical activity (PA) should consider life stages (i.e., midlife and older age) and PA barriers from multiple sources (e.g., personal, social, cultural, environmental). While social ecological models are used to study PA determinants of rural women across life stages, few studies explore rural men or concurrently explore gender differences in PA participation, across midlife, older age, and rural settings from a social ecological perspective. Understanding PA determinants from a gender, life stage and social ecological perspective is necessary to develop effective PA interventions. The proposed project uses qualitative methods and  a social-ecological perspective to gain insight into psychological, social, cultural and environmental influences of men’s and women’s PA, across life stages (i.e., ages 44-59, ages 60+), in rural Iowa. This information will lead to an application for further funding to develop, and test, a multi-level gender- and life-stage-specific PA intervention for rural Iowans.