This article presents a conceptual framework that was developed to guide a national evaluation of the American Legacy Foundation's (Legacy) Statewide Youth Movement Against Tobacco Use (SYMATU) program. This program was designed to develop youth-led, youth-directed initiatives within local communities. Two evaluation studies were designed and implemented from 2000 through 2003: a cross-site study that collected standard data elements across all 17 programs and a case study of five programs that collected formative data on variables thought to affect program implementation. In developing the youth empowerment (YE) conceptual framework, the authors started by reviewing literature to identify the concepts necessary for these types of initiatives and present a summary of their findings here. This article focuses on the development of the authors'overarching conceptual framework used to guide their evaluation studies. Other articles contained within this special issue present results from each of the SYMATU evaluation studies.

Objective: Food insecurity is associated with childhood obesity possibly mediated through caregiver feeding practices and beliefs. We examined if caregiver feeding practices differed by household food security status in a diverse sample of infants. We hypothesize feeding practices differ based on food security status. Patients and Methods: Baseline cross-sectional analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial to prevent obesity. Included in the analysis was 842 caregivers of 2-month-old infants presenting for well-child care at 4 academic institutions. Food insecurity exposure was based on an affirmative answer to one of two items in a 2-item validated questionnaire. Chi-square tests examined the association between parent feeding practices and food security status. Logistic regression adjusted for covariates. Differences in caregiver feeding practices by food security status and race/ethnicity were explored with an interaction term (food security status x race/ethnicity). Results: 43% of families screened as food insecure. In adjusted logistic regression, parents from food-insecure households were more likely to endorse that “the best way to make an infant stop crying is to feed him/her” (aOR: 1.72, 95% CI: 1.28-2.29); and “When my baby cries, I immediately feed him/her” (aOR: 1.40, 95%CI: 1.06-1.83). Food insecure caregivers less frequently endorsed paying attention to their baby when s/he is full or hungry (OR 0.57 95%CI: 0.34-0.96). Racial/ethnic differences in beliefs and behaviors were observed by food security status. Conclusions: During early infancy, feeding practices differed among caregivers by household food security status. Further research is needed to examine whether these practices are associated with increased risk of obesity and obesity-related morbidity.

Objective: To identify factors associated with the presence and severity of food insecurity among a sample of Honduran caregivers of young children. Design: Cross-sectional study in which the dependent variable, household food insecurity, was measured using a fourteen-item questionnaire developed and validated in a population of similar cultural context. A predictive modelling strategy used backwards elimination in logistic regression and multinomial logit regression models to compute odds ratios and 95 % confidence intervals for food insecurity. Setting: Rural Honduras in the department of Intibucá, between March and April 2009. Subjects: Two-hundred and ninety-eight Honduran caregivers of children aged 6-18 months. Results: Ninety-three per cent of households were classified as having some degree of food insecurity (mild, moderate or severe). After controlling for caregiver age and marital status, compared with caregivers with more than primary-school education, those with less than primary-school education had 3?47 (95 % CI 1?34, 8?99) times the odds of severe food insecurity and 2?29 (95 % CI 1?00, 5?25) times the odds of moderate food insecurity. Our results also found that child anthropometric status was not associated with the presence or severity of food insecurity. Conclusions: These results show that among the sociodemographic factors assessed, food insecurity in rural Honduras is associated with maternal education. Understanding key factors associated with food insecurity that are unique to Honduras can inform the design of interventions to effectively mitigate the negative impact of food insecurity on children.

No abstract