NCT06978270

Healthy Start: Family Childcare Providers and Parents

Healthy Start: An Innovative, Multi-level Intervention With Family Childcare Providers and Families to Improve the Dietary Behaviors of Pre-school Children

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 40 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Brown University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The preschool years are a critical time for shaping food preferences and eating behaviors, which affect dietary behaviors in adults and life-long risks for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many US children, especially low-income and ethnic minorities, have dietary patterns associated with obesity and increased morbidity. Thus, to improve child diet quality, it is essential to develop effective targeted interventions in settings where children (especially higher-risk children) spend time. The investigators build upon our efficacious Healthy Start intervention with family childcare home (FCCH) providers (FCCP) to pilot a novel, 8-month multilevel tailored intervention to reach families through FCCH. This would be the first study to incorporate family-based intervention components into FCCH. The 8-month intervention will include an adapted version of the Healthy Start intervention as well as FCCP training to deliver nutrition messages to parents using an existing childcare App, complemented with FCCH environmental cues and tailored print and videos for parents. In sum, feasible and effective interventions to improve young children's diets are urgently needed. The FCCH is a novel and untapped setting to intervene with both FCCP and parents simultaneously to affect children's diets in both childcare and home settings, which has the potential to more fully impact the child's overall diet and weight status.

Detailed description

The preschool years are a critical time for shaping food preferences and eating behaviors which, in turn, affect dietary behaviors in adults and life-long risks for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions. Unfortunately, many US children, especially low-income and ethnic minorities, have dietary patterns associated with obesity and increased morbidity. Thus, to improve child diet quality, it is essential to develop effective targeted interventions in settings where children (especially higher risk children) spend time. There is a national call for dietary interventions that span multiple settings including the childcare and home environments. In response to PAS-20-160, the investigators build upon our efficacious Healthy Start intervention with family childcare home (FCCH) providers (FCCP) to pilot a novel, 8-month multilevel tailored intervention to reach families through FCCH. This would be the first study to incorporate family-based intervention components into FCCH. FCCH are a promising intervention setting as parents trust FCCPs as extended family members and FCCP feel comfortable talking to parents about children's diet, but want more training to do so effectively. The 8-month intervention will include an adapted version of the Healthy Start intervention for English and Spanish-speaking FCCP as well as FCCP training to deliver nutrition messages to parents using an existing childcare App, complemented with FCCH environmental cues and tailored print and videos for parents. Specific Aims are to: SA.1. Conduct formative research with FCCP and parents to inform refinement of the multi-level intervention. SA.2. Conduct a pilot trial with 40 FCCP and 80 parents with 18-54-month-old children to evaluate feasibility and acceptability of intervention and study protocols, and preliminary efficacy of the nutrition intervention compared to an attention-matched control on: a). children's dietary quality at FCCH and home, b). social/physical FCCH and home food environments, c). children's dermal carotenoid levels and z-BMI scores. SA3. Conduct post qualitative interviews with parents, FCCP, coaches, staff \& partners to assess the intervention's acceptability and suggestions for improvement. In sum, feasible and effective interventions to improve young children's diets are urgently needed. The FCCH is a novel and untapped setting to intervene with both FCCP and parents simultaneously to affect children's diets in both the childcare and home settings, which has the potential to more fully impact the child's overall diet and weight status. This pilot feasibility research of a novel, multi-level intervention will inform a future full-scale cluster RCT, which will fill important research gaps and move the frontier of nutrition research forward.

Conditions

• Child Obesity
• Nutrition, Healthy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Healthy Eating: Provider and Parent Components	Healthy Eating intervention for child care providers: Peer coaching using brief MI online, tailored materials, coach-led online support groups for FCCP and children's tableware and food toys; 2) Brief training on using and scheduling messages within the Classtag App; 3) Posters for the FCCH. Also for parents, healthy eating encoragement and communication from childcare providers including via the Classtag App, newsletters, videos and tableware/food toys focused on child diet at home.
BEHAVIORAL	Healthy Start: Reading Readiness Childcare Proiver and Parent Materials	Reading readiness intervention for child care providers: Peer coaching using brief MI online, tailored materials, coach-led online support groups for FCCP and children's books; 2) Brief training on using and scheduling messages within the Classtag App; 3) Posters for the FCCH. Also for parents, reading readiness encoragement and communication from childcare providers including via the Classtag App, newsletters, books focused for use at home.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-06-15
• Primary completion: 2026-03-31
• Completion: 2026-03-31
• First posted: 2025-05-18
• Last updated: 2025-06-03