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An Interpersonal Relationships Intervention for Improving Cardiovascular Health in Youth

Award Number: R01HL136676
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, & BLOOD INSTITUTE
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2018
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2025

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An Interpersonal Relationships Intervention for Improving Cardiovascular Health in Youth - PROJECT SUMMARY Disparities in cardiovascular (CV) diseases by socioeconomic status (SES) and race/ethnicity are pronounced in our society, and the processes that lead to these disparities begin in childhood. Previous intervention efforts have targeted individual lifestyle changes in health behaviors, but with limited success in low SES, minority youth. We propose a novel intervention to reduce CV risk in low SES, minority children (under 21 by NIH guidelines) that focuses on social relationships – specifically mentoring – as a way to create bi-directional benefits for CV health in youth. The rationale for this intervention is based both on work showing that receiving social support has benefits for physical health, and on work demonstrating that helping others is associated with better physical health. In this proposed intervention study, college students will serve as mentors to elementary school students (8th graders). 250 college students and 250 Chicago Public School 8th graders will be randomized to either serve as a mentor/mentee or to be in a control group. Students will participate in a weekly mentoring intervention throughout one school year. Assessments will occur at 3 time points during the school year. All mentors and mentees will come from low-income families and underrepresented minority groups, thus allowing us to focus on improving CV health in an at-risk population that experiences a disproportionate share of the CV burden in the U.S. The first aim of the project is to investigate whether mentors can reduce CV risk (obesity; blood pressure; cholesterol; blood glucose) in low-income, minority youth mentees relative to a control group of 8th graders. The second aim is to investigate whether serving as a mentor can reduce CV risk in the college student mentors compared to a control group of college students. The third aim is to understand how mentoring influences the intervention targets of psychosocial, health behavior, and biological variables, and whether these variables mediate the impact of mentoring on CV health. Drawing from the stress buffering model of social support, we propose that mentoring fosters the development of strong social relationships that can scaffold behavioral changes and hence mitigate the effects that stress has on inflammation and CV health via 2 pathways: psychophysiological and health behaviors. In the psychophysiological pathway, mentoring creates more adaptive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to life stressors, which in turn mitigate responses of the sympathetic and neuroendocrine systems to stress. Over time, this reduces inflammation and improves CV health. In the health behaviors pathway, the scaffolding from mentoring relationships mitigates the associations of stress with detrimental health behaviors that in turn are linked to both inflammation and CV health. Through this study, we take a social relationships- oriented primary prevention approach to reducing health disparities by targeting CV risk factors that emerge early in life and that predict clinical CV disease outcomes into adulthood and by focusing on low-income, minority mentors and mentees who represent an at-risk, underserved, and disadvantaged group of youth.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2025	2022	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK ST	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	5	12/26/2024	SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2024	2022	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK ST	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	001	5	4/6/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2024	2022	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK STREET	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	5	12/27/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $777,502 )
2022	2022	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	001	5	5/6/2022	SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION	$59,278
2022	2022	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	5	5/5/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$718,224
														Subtotal = $777,502

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $791,339 )
2021	2021	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	4	7/14/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$730,456
2021	2021	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	001	4	7/15/2021	SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION	$60,883
														Subtotal = $791,339

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $819,516 )
2020	2020	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	3	5/28/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$819,516
														Subtotal = $819,516

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $819,357 )
2019	2019	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK ST EVANSTON	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	001	2	8/30/2019	SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION	$56,543
2019	2019	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK ST EVANSTON	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	2	5/29/2019	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$762,814
														Subtotal = $819,357

Issue Date FY: 2018 ( Subtotal = $815,601 )
2018	2018	NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	633 CLARK ST EVANSTON	EVANSTON	IL	60208	COOK	USA	Cardiovascular Diseases Research	000	1	8/22/2018	NEW	$815,601
														Subtotal = $815,601

Grand Total All Awards = $4,023,315

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An Interpersonal Relationships Intervention for Improving Cardiovascular Health in Youth

Award Number: R01HL136676

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, & BLOOD INSTITUTE

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2018

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 05/31/2025

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