WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: Childhood obesity is already prevalent by preschool age, particularly among Latinos. Parents have tremendous influence on factors that contribute to childhood obesity (eg, diet, physical activity); thus, family plays a crucial role in pediatric obesity prevention. WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS:This randomized controlled trial examined the effect of a behavioral intervention involving LatinoAmerican parent-preschool-aged child dyads. The intervention resulted in reductions in absolute BMI across the 3-month study period, with patterns suggesting the largest effect for obese children.abstract OBJECTIVE: To test the effect of a culturally tailored, family-centered, short-term behavioral intervention on BMI in Latino-American preschool-aged children. METHODS:In a randomized controlled trial, 54 parent-child dyads were allocated to the intervention and 52 dyads were allocated to an alternative school-readiness program as the control condition. Parent-child dyads were eligible if the parent self-defined Latino, was at least 18 years old, had a 2-to 6-year-old child not currently enrolled in another healthy lifestyle program, had a valid telephone number, and planned on remaining in the city for the next 6 months. The Salud Con La Familia (Health with the Family) program consisted of 12 weekly 90-minute skills-building sessions designed to improve family nutritional habits and increase physical activity. Both programs were conducted in a community recreation center serving an urban neighborhood of mostly Spanish-speaking residents.RESULTS: Forty-two percent of participating preschool-aged children were overweight or obese. Controlling for child age, gender, and baseline BMI, the effect of the treatment condition on postintervention absolute BMI was B = -0.59 (P , .001). The intervention effect seemed to be strongest for obese children.CONCLUSIONS: A skills-building, culturally tailored intervention involving parent-child dyads changed short-term early growth patterns in these Latino-American preschool-aged children. Examining long-term effects would be a prudent next step.

This study explores the relationship between individuals' risk tolerance and occupational injuries. We analyze data from a national representative survey of U.S. workers that includes information about injuries, risk tolerance, cognitive and noncognitive attributes, and risky behaviors. We measure risk tolerance through questions regarding individuals' willingness to gamble on their lifetime income. We estimate zero-inflated count models to assess the role played by such measures on workers' recurrent injuries. We discuss some implications of our results for future research and occupational safety policies. Our results highlight the concurrent and changing role played by individual, work, and environmental factors in explaining recurrent incidents. They show that risk tolerance affects recurrent injuries, although not in the direction that proponents of the concept of proneness would expect. Our measure of risk aversion shows that individuals who are somewhat more risk tolerant have fewer recurrent injuries than those who are risk averse. But the estimated relationship is U-shaped, not monotonic and, therefore, not easy to predict. At the same time, we find that individuals' "revealed risk preferences"-specific risky behaviors-are related to higher injury probabilities. Demanding working conditions, measures of socioeconomic status, health, and safety problems experienced by workers during their youth remain among the most important factors explaining the phenomena of recurrent injuries. So our results contribute also to the important debate about the relationship between health and socioeconomic status.

Workplace ergonomic training is cost-effective and should be implemented wherein other engineering-control interventions are precluded due to infrastructural constraints.

Workplace incivility and bullying may carry monetary costs to employers, which could be controlled through work environment modification.

Background: Living near community recreation centers (CRC) is associated with increases in adolescent and adult physical activity, but the efficacy of efforts to increase use among Latino parents and young children is unknown. We hypothesized that Latino parent-child dyads with exposure to a CRC through culturally tailored programming would be more likely to use the facility for physical activity a year after programming ended than dyads living in the same geographic area who were not exposed to the programming.Methods: self-identified Latino parent-child dyads who had participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCt) of a culturally tailored healthy lifestyle program and completed a 12-month follow-up assessment constituted the "exposed" group (n = 66). the "unexposed" group included 62 parent-child dyads living in the same zip codes as the exposed group, all within a 5-mile radius of the CRC. Participants completed in-person structured interviews.Results: Approximately two-thirds of exposed parents reported more than monthly use of the CRC for themselves a year after programming ended, compared to one-third of unexposed Latino families with the same geographic access (c2 = 11.26, p < 0.01). Parents in the exposed group were four times more likely than the unexposed group to use the CRC with their children on a monthly basis (odds ratio = 4.18, p < 0.01).Conclusions: CRCs that develop culturally tailored programs that invite Latino families inside can increase sustained CRC use for physical activity in this population at heightened risk for childhood obesity.