Outcomes of a Community-Wide Health Intervention in a Low-Income,Primarily Hispanic Community: The Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin (GAVA) Initiative

Abstract

Objectives

To describe outcomes of a 4-year physical activity (PA) and nutrition intervention (2013–2017) in Dove Springs, a low-income urban community in Texas.

Method

Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin is a place-based intervention targeting the built and social environments of PA and nutrition. Baseline and follow-up measures related to PA and nutrition were obtained from 357 parent–child dyads (final n = 236) in the intervention community and a control community. A three-level dose of exposure measure was created to indicate the amount of exposure to intervention activities across the 4 years. Pre–post changes in key outcomes by level of exposure and contrasts across “high exposure” and “no exposure” categories were obtained using repeated-measures regression, adjusting for important confounders.

Results

“High exposure” adult participants showed consistently more favorable changes than “no exposure” participants across a variety of indicators, including positive perceptions and utilization of community PA resources, amount of moderate PA, utilization of retail outlets offering fresh produce, and measures of healthy eating. Few improvements were seen in child-level outcomes.

Conclusions

Community interventions can successfully improve health-promoting behaviors provided they ensure sufficient dose of exposure.