The North Carolina Center for Health and Wellness awarded three Wellness Initiative Starter (WIS) grants
during the 2007 calendar year on which work is continuing in 2008. Teams involve
multiple
faculty and student researchers focusing multidisciplinary health promotion efforts on Center priority areas: childhood obesity prevention and workplace wellness.
Identifying the Role of Self-Efficacy in Women’s Health Behaviors Amy Lanou (Health and Wellness), Ellen Bailey (Foreign Languages), and Karin Peterson (Sociology), with the assistance of three undergraduate researchers,
hope to better understand effective means of promoting healthy lifestyles in
women, knowledge that could then be applied to obesity prevention efforts in
children. Data collection with UNCA college students has already been
completed, and efforts are now underway to continue the research in the Western
North Carolina Latina community. As a result of their preliminary work,
Lanou and Bailey are currently consulting on a community grant ("Latino Health
Promotion Partnernship") funded by the Center for Health and Aging that will
focus on assessing and coordinating health promotion efforts in Latino youth and
families.
Breath Acetone as an Indicator of Fat Metabolism During Exercise
Herb Pomfrey (Biology), Chris Nicolay (Biology), Chuck Bennett (Physics), and undergraduate researchers
are attempting to develop a technique to measure breath acetone changes in
exercisers. Collaborating with IonScience, manufacturers of a
technological device that is being used in the project, they are currently
working to improve accuracy and reliability of their equipment. Because
breath acetone changes signal increased fat metabolism is taking place, the
researchers hope that providing exercisers with feedback about acetone changes could serve as a motivational incentive to continue aerobic activity, especially helpful to overweight individuals
attempting to reduce body weight through an exercise program.
Testing a Model of Workplace Health and Wellness: An Intervention Approach
Bryan Schaffer (Management) and Tracy Lambert (Management) developed an
assessment tool to assess health-related problems and adjustment in employees.
They recently completed data collection with employees of the Biltmore Estate,
and they are currently analyzing their findings.
