Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Exploring childhood obesity through multiple levels of influence: An examination of the social and environmental context for healthy weight among minority youth and parents(2014) Jones, Chandria Denise; Desmond, Sharon M; Public and Community Health; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Childhood obesity is a major public health problem disproportionately affecting low-income minority populations. Although obesity is prevalent in these communities, little is known about how social and environmental factors affect behaviors related to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight among minority youth and parents. In this dissertation, two studies were conducted on data from 14 focus groups with African American, Hispanic and Latino, and American Indian parents over the age of 18 and youth ages 11-17 across the country to better understand the multiple levels of influence affecting minority youths' ability to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. In study 1, youth and parents identified four behaviors related to healthy weight: engaging in primary prevention, taking care of your mental health, eating healthy foods, and being physically active. Several community level barriers, such as cost, time constraints, and safety, were identified, but few societal level barriers were discussed. Community and societal level facilitators (e.g. school resources, government assistance, heritage-based foods) were limited. Interestingly, youth and parents across all racial and ethnic groups experienced similar barriers and facilitators, which imply socioeconomic status, may be the important variable rather than race and ethnicity. In study 2, focus group data was examined to understand how media (e.g. television, movies, texting, social media, Internet, radio) influences behaviors related to healthy weight and explore preferred digital/ social media communication strategies. Analyses highlighted positive associations with media through information and encouragement, negative relationships between media and unhealthy behaviors, and problematic perceptions about the influence of marketing in media. Preferred digital/ social media communication strategies were discussed in terms of source, message, channel, and receivers. Participants wanted to see people who looked like them and had similar experiences. Many of the same communication strategies successful in traditional media would work for digital and social media. Community-based conversations provide first-hand knowledge about how youth and parents think and feel regarding healthy weight. Through this discourse, practitioners, researchers, and community advocates gain insight into how to develop interventions and policies that can result in long-term behavior change to improve healthy weight in minority populations.Item The Association of Negative Family Processes in Early Adolescence and Health Status and Body Mass Index in Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood(2011) Pollock, Elizabeth Davenport; Shenassa, Edmond; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Extant research suggests that negative family processes during adolescence may be detrimental to health over time. Informed by family systems theory and the biopsychosocial perspective, this study examined the association of negative family processes in early adolescence and health status and body mass index in late adolescence and early adulthood. Data from U.S. males and females in two-parent households from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 were examined over a ten year period from early adolescence to early adulthood. Results from logistic regressions and multiple regressions suggest that negative parent-child processes (NPCP) and negative inter-parental processes (NIPP) are associated with elevated risk for poorer health status but are not associated with body mass index. Logistic regressions estimated the association between NPCP and NIPP and youth's risk of very good, good and poor health status, respectively, as compared to excellent health status. Specifically, there is a step function for the association between NPCP and risk for poorer health status in late adolescence and early adulthood, between NIPP and risk for poorer health status in late adolescence and between NIPP and risk for the poorest health status category in early adulthood. Mental health, unhealthy behaviors (tobacco use, marijuana use and alcohol use), and healthy behaviors (i.e. physical activity) partially mediated the association between NPCP and NIPP, respectively, and health status in late adolescence, and mental health and tobacco use (only for NPCP) partially mediated the association with health status in early adulthood. All analyses are independent of race, gender, maternal education, health status in early adolescence, BMI in early adolescence, parental health status, and parental BMI. Moderation by maternal education and implications for public health, future research, programming, and therapy are discussed.