Considering the Roles of Caregiving Grandparents and Multigenerational Households in Young Children's Nutrition and Food Security (Clark, Cheney & Morales Vasquez)

Topic: Considering the Roles of Caregiving Grandparents and Multigenerational Households in Young Children's Nutrition and Food Security

Speakers: Generations United and Drs. Ann Cheney and Evelyn Morales Vasquez from UC Riverside

Title: Grow Well/Crecer Bien – Incorporating Other Caregivers in Infant Feeding Intervention Research (Cheney)

• This presentation will provide an overview of the Grow Well/Crecer Bien study, a 5-year study that characterizes the caregiver context of infant feeding in low-income families and engages mothers, caregivers, and community health workers in the design, development, and testing of an adapted evidence-based early childhood obesity intervention. We report on findings from the first and second phases of the study and an overview of the adapted intervention and pilot randomized controlled trial.
• Positionality statement from Dr. Ann Cheney: I am a white-heterosexual female researcher. I grew up in rural upstate New York on a family-run farm, am a foster mother, and am part of the Latino community via marriage and speak Spanish. These identities shape my career and passion for working with low-income Latinx farm-working communities.
• Positionality statement from Dr. Evelyn Morales Vasquez: I am a Latina woman of color. I am the firstborn daughter of a teenage single mother. I grew up in a rural low-income background in Guerrero, Mexico and was the first in my family to attend college. These personal experiences significantly shape my intentionality to create healthier and safer conditions for historically and currently marginalized communities, including low-income, immigrants, Spanish-speaking patients, first-generation students, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).