PRC-RH Core Research

The goal of our core research is to work with our community partnerships, in order to address rural health issues using community-based participatory research principals.

Rural Restaurant Study 

PI: Faryle Nothwehr

The much publicized obesity epidemic has led researchers and public health professionals in search of affordable and effective community programs that will contribute to a more supportive environment for healthy eating and physical activity.  This project focuses on rural, locally-owned restaurants as a possible point of intervention.  A review of existing restaurant-based programs intended to encourage healthy eating reveals that these programs are often too expensive and impractical for the typical owner-operated restaurant in the rural Midwest. 

In the pilot project of this study, a low-cost, low-risk intervention was implemented and evaluated over time in three rural restaurants.  This pilot tested the feasibility of program implementation and data collection methods, examined issues of program sustainability, and provided preliminary data on what customers want and what restaurant owners may be willing to change.  Results are being used to inform the design of a much larger statewide dissemination study involving rural restaurants.

The specific aims of this study are:

1. To determine the adoption rate of the restaurant intervention using an identified denominator (n=100) of restaurants in rural Iowa. The adoption rate is calculated as the number of restaurant owners that agree to initiate the intervention divided by the denominator. This aim also includes examining the representativeness of these owners and their restaurants, comparing them to non-adopters.

2. To determine implementation characteristics of the restaurant intervention. This included fidelity to the intervention among adopters, and time and cost elements.

3. To determine the maintenance level of the restaurant intervention over a period of 1.5 years. This included the extent to which the intervention has becomes institutionalized, or part of routine practices.

Previous Core Research

The PRC-RH's previous core research involved numerous community research projects with the Community Health Action Partnership (CHAP) in Sigourney, Iowa. CHAP's past partnership with the PRC-RH resulted in environmental and policy changes from center and partner activities. For example, efforts of the Sigourney Healthy Environment Project (SHEP) a working group of CHAP, led to a budgetary focus on dilapidated housing and abandoned property by the local city government. Another example is a PRC-RH and CHAP initiative on adolescent alcohol which led to a county keg registration ordinance, the expansion of the ordinance through technical assistance to more than twenty-seven of 99 counties, and the eventual passage of keg registration at the state level in 2007. CHAP’s success was recognized at the state level as the working group received the Above and Beyond Award from the Iowa Governor’s Office.

To read about selected other research projects at the PRC-RH click here.

To read about the PRC-RH Pilot Grant Program click here.