Comunidades y Espacios Activos (CEA; “Active Communities and Spaces”)
Overview
This study seeks to reduce the burden of physical inactivity by accelerating the uptake of place-activation evidence-based interventions (EBIs) in low-income urban communities in Mexico and informing action for high need groups in the U.S., including U.S.-based Latin Americans. Evidence tells us that building or renovating public spaces for physical activity, on its own, is insufficient to increase physical activity in communities. However, when coupled with “place-activation” strategies (programming and other community-engaged activities that maximize utilization of the public space for physical activity), renovated spaces become community health promoting hubs. Through this project, we will harness an existing policy in Mexico that is supporting the renovation of multiple public spaces across the country to conduct a mixed-methods study in up to 10 cities where our team has existing partnerships. Our study will test multisectoral engagement methods to advance active dissemination and implementation for increasing the uptake of place-activation EBIs in low-income urban communities. This will be the first to test state-of-the-art implementation science methods for improving the uptake of effective, place-based physical activity EBIs in low-income urban Latin American communities. As such, it will provide critical evidence for addressing the growing levels of NCDs for similar high-need populations, including U.S.-based Latin Americans.
Team Members
Principal Investigator
Diana Orozco-Lapray
Project Manager
Case Garza
Graduate Research Assistant