Friday, July 18, 2025 7/18/2025

iAmHealthy Parents First

Award Number: R01NR019810
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NURSING RESEARCH
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 03/03/2022
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 12/31/2025

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iAmHealthy Parents First - Project Summary/Abstract Both children and adults in rural areas have higher obesity rates than their urban counterparts. With less access to evidence-based weight loss interventions, obesity poses a major risk factor contributing to elevated morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer among rural Americans. Obesity runs in families due to multiple factors including hereditary components, home environment, and behavioral modeling around dietary intake, physical activity, and screen time. Thus, targeting the rural family unit has the potential to enhance weight loss for adults and children simultaneously. Previous research from our team indicates that mHealth is feasible and acceptable for the delivery of obesity interventions to rural families as this type of intervention lowers child Body Mass Index z score (BMIz) and helps children and families to significantly change their health behaviors. The current application extends this work in a new and innovative direction, targeting parents first with an empirically supported obesity intervention, and then moving on to treat the family unit. In a randomized trial, we propose to compare a 4-month parent-only intervention followed by a 6-month family based behavioral group intervention (iAmHealthy-Parents First) to a parent wait-list control followed by the family based behavioral group intervention (iAmHealthy). Parent/child dyads will be recruited from both rural elementary schools and rural medical clinics in 8 towns. Each town will consist of a single site and will recruit 30 parent/child dyads, 15 of whom will be randomly assigned to iAmHealthy-Parents First and 15 to iAmHealthy, for a total of 240 parents and 240 children. Each rural town will have a population < 20,000 and/or the Rural Urban Commuting Area Codes of 4 or greater, and for the purposes of the study will include a nurse at a rural health clinic partnering with a nurse at a rural elementary school to make a single site. In Aim 1 we propose to study effectiveness through change in child BMIz and parent percent weight loss from baseline to month 10 (post-intervention), as well as through change in diet, change in physical activity and change in parent and child weight related quality of life. In Aim 2, we propose to assess mediators and moderators that we believe are specifically important to the treatment model and to the rural population. In Aim 3 we propose to explore the reach and representativeness of the intervention, and to explore a concept we have found key in both our adult and pediatric trials – nurse engagement. Our experience suggests that nurse engagement plays a key role in recruitment, retention, and engagement of the families, and here we propose to assess nurse engagement as well as foster it through the development of a Rural Nurse Engagement Collaborative. This exploratory aim will provide critical pragmatic data to inform future studies aimed at testing local implementation and dissemination strategies. The iAmHealthy Parents First intervention is an easily scalable, widely disseminable obesity intervention option which could significantly improve the way we treat obesity among rural families.


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 = $728,486 )
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	003	4	6/13/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	000	4	1/9/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$655,638
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	001	4	5/6/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$72,848
2025	2024	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	002	3	6/13/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
														Subtotal = $728,486

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $744,160 )
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	001	3	5/2/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$74,416
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	000	3	12/26/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$669,744
														Subtotal = $744,160

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $765,845 )
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	001	2	2/9/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$76,583
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	3901 RAINBOW BLVD	KANSAS CITY	KS	66160	WYANDOTTE	USA	Nursing Research	000	2	12/30/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$689,262
														Subtotal = $765,845

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $780,100 )
2022	2022	UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.	4330 SHAWNEE MISSION PKWY	SHAWNEE MISSION	KS	66205	JOHNSON	USA	Nursing Research	000	1	3/2/2022	NEW	$780,100
														Subtotal = $780,100

Grand Total All Awards = $3,018,591

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iAmHealthy Parents First

Award Number: R01NR019810

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NURSING RESEARCH

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

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

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 03/03/2022

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 12/31/2025

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