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Effectiveness of a worksite lifestyle intervention to reduce BMI among farmworkers in California: a cluster randomised controlled trial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2022

Susana L Matias*
Affiliation:
Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology, University of California, 225 Morgan Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Heather E Riden
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, USA Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Deandra S Lee
Affiliation:
Center for Health and Environment, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Heejung Bang
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Marc B Schenker
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, USA Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Email slmatias@berkeley.edu
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Abstract

Objective:

To evaluate the effectiveness of PASOS SALUDABLES, a culturally tailored lifestyle intervention to prevent obesity and diabetes among Latino farmworkers, when implemented at large scale in the worksite.

Design:

This study was a two-arm parallel group, cluster randomised controlled trial, where participants received either a twelve-session lifestyle intervention (intervention) or six-session leadership training (control) at their worksite. The intervention was delivered by Promotoras in Spanish. All sessions were conducted at the worksites (ranches) during meal breaks. Blinded, trained research assistants collected socio-demographic and outcome data (i.e. BMI as primary outcome and waist circumference, glycated Hb (HbA1c), cholesterol and blood pressure as secondary outcomes) at baseline and follow-up assessments (i.e. 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 1·5 years).

Setting:

Recruitment and intervention delivery occurred at twelve study ranches in Oxnard, California.

Participants:

We enrolled farmworkers hired by a large berry grower company, who were ≥18 years old, spoke Spanish and were free of diabetes at screening.

Results:

A total of 344 workers were enrolled in the intervention and 271 in the control group. The intervention resulted in attenuated increase of BMI over time; however, the difference in trend between groups was not significant (β = −0·01 for slope difference, P = 0·29). No significantly different trend by group was observed in secondary outcomes (P > 0·27).

Conclusions:

The worksite intervention, implemented during meal breaks, did not reduce BMI or other clinical indicators. Nevertheless, this study supports the feasibility of recruiting and engaging the Latino farmworker population in workplace health promotion interventions.

Information

Type
Research Paper
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society
Figure 0

Fig. 1 Light grey colour filled boxes list sample sizes at the individual level. ‘Window closed’ indicates that the time window for completing that visit was over. ‘Drop out’ refers to a participant who was no longer in the study (no longer interested or employed, lack of transportation, out of the country, moved, passed away, and withdrew due to misconduct). ‘Unable to reach’ means a participant could not be reached after a predefined number of attempts to contact them. BL, baseline; HbA1c, glycated Hb; FU, follow-up; sd, standard deviation of cluster size; n refers to sample size at the cluster level

Figure 1

Table 1 Baseline characteristics of study participants by arm

Figure 2

Table 2 Effectiveness of the PASOS SALUDABLES intervention on primary and secondary outcomes

Figure 3

Fig. 2 Time variable coded as visit number. Visit 0: baseline; visit 1: end of intervention or 3-month follow-up; visit 2: 6-month follow-up; visit 3: 1-year follow-up; visit 4: 1·5-year follow-up. Blue circles and blue bars denote pointwise unadjusted estimates and 95 % CI for the intervention arm. Red circles and red bars denote pointwise unadjusted estimates and 95 % CI for the control arm

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