New Mexico Residents to Participate in GPS Tracking Health Study
4 Feb 2014A new study in Torrance, New Mexico asks for participants to track their daily activity with a GPS tracker.
The participants come from Torrance County in New Mexico, and are volunteering for a new health study. Each person who participates in the study will carry a GPS tracker during the upcoming summer. The GPS tracking device will track the participant’s movements and location throughout a typical day. The main focus of the study is to look at the health choices of people in local rural communities, particularly the poor choices people facing obesity have in a normal day.
Corina Chavez-Neish, a home economist form the New Mexico State University, says the study will track eating, exercise and what is available to the participants in their area. If they have barriers as far as safe places to exercise or healthy eating options, the study will hopefully help them find alternatives. One example Chavez-Neish uses is the many dirt roads in this community makes it difficult to walk or run.
The study in question is called Generating Rural Options for Weight (GROW) and is being conducted by researchers at Oregon State University. GROW is intended to be a five-year study that will create opportunities for communities, children, families and schools find healthy food options and become more physically active on a daily basis. They hope to help battle obesity in children living in these rural communities.
The researchers want to provide healthier communities for children and adults, looking for healthier eating options and identifying physical activity barriers.
The study has received its $4.87 million funding from a grant offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The study will eventually include six states in total — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington . Torrance county in New Mexico was a county chosen because of how rural it is.
According to a news article in the Albuquerque Journal, “Many communities lack access to affordable, fresh, nutritious food, and it is difficult to walk or bike to destinations and participate regularly in physical activity and recreational sports programs.”
There will be multiple phases of this program, with the first phase being to recruit participants for the GPS tracking study, follow them around throughout their day, and look for barriers to being more physically active and eating healthy.
Next, the leaders of the study will help communities find alternatives to these barriers, recommending other options for their local residents. This includes helping them to find available resources.
Among the communities across the country, rural communities tend to have the hardest time finding healthy resources for children and families. These are the main issues GROW and fellow researchers are hoping to tackle, beginning with the GPS tracking part of the study.
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