Promoting Physical Activity Among Adolescents: A School-Academic Partnership in Appalachia

Mentoring has proven to be an effective method for communities to address health-related priorities. The mentoring approach has the advantage of program sustainability by empowering communities to mobilize citizens to actively promote health behaviors to achieve improved health outcomes. This presentation will provide participants with: an historical overview of effective mentoring established in the research, a model of health education based on mentor delivery and a description of best practices for using mentoring. We will describe an example of an effective mentoring program currently funded by NIH/NICHD (R01HD080866). This project targets hard to reach adolescents residing in the Appalachian region, an underserved region of the United States. Appalachians are the most sedentary population in the United States; adolescents are particularly sedentary. Only 13.6 percent of teens reported 60 minutes of daily moderate activity, while 38 percent reported no moderate physical activity and 78.2 percent reported no vigorous physical activity in the past week. The long-term goal of this project is to promote physical activity to improve health outcomes including the high rates of obesity in Appalachian teens. We train local peer mentors to deliver the culturally appropriate intervention and provide social support that is critical for facilitating and sustaining health behavior change. Our objective is to compare the efficacy of an innovative healthy lifestyle skills mentoring program for increasing physical activity. The program "Mentoring to be Active" emphasizes the social determinants of health by using a peer/social network approach that trains peer mentors to guide and support targeted teens to build skills in personal physical activity behaviors. During the past three years, we have acquired valuable experience in the effective recruitment, training, and implementation of peer-mentoring programs. We will provide a detailed explanation of our observations. Possible challenges and successful strategies implemented during the planning and implementation phases of the mentoring program will be described. Feedback and open dialogue between presentation leaders and participants is expected.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Laureen Smith, Associate Professor, Nursing, smith.5765@osu.edu (Corresponding Author); Rick Petosa, Professor, College of Education; Judy Harness, Project Director, College of Nursing; Beverly Stringer, Project Coordinator, CCTS.Obesity prevention through physical activity is a top priority in Rural Healthy People 2020 and Healthy People 2020. Appalachians are the most sedentary population in the United States, and teens residing in this region are particularly sedentary. During the past 12 years, we have developed an innovative mentoring program for improving health behaviors and health outcomes among teens residing in Appalachia. Mentoring has proven to be an effective method for communities to address health-related priorities. The mentoring approach is sustainable because it empowers communities to mobilize citizens to actively promote health. The presenters will provide participants with an historical overview of effective mentoring, a model of health education based on mentor delivery, and a description of best practices for using mentoring