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Health Promotion Projects at the UMass Medical School-E.K. Shriver Center LEND & UCEDD Programs

March 26, 2013

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center LEND and UCEDD programs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) have recently been awarded three grants that expand their work in health promotion for youth with developmental disabilities.

 

  1. Linda Bandini, PhD, Director of Nutrition for the UMMS-Shriver Center LEND program, received an R40 grant from the Maternal Child Health Bureau to examine dietary patterns, parental feeding styles and feeding practices, and obesity in young children with intellectual disabilities. Carol Curtin, MSW, Associate Director of the UMMS-Shriver Center LEND program, will participate as a co-investigator.

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  2. The Ruderman Family Foundation awarded a grant to support the Shriver Center's HEalthy Recreation & Activity for TeenS (HEARTS) program, an inclusive, community-based program for adolescents with developmental disabilities and typically developing peers. The HEARTS program features physical fitness training, social skill development, peer support, and nutrition awareness in order to support teens to live healthy, active lives. The program is co-directed by Carol Curtin, MSW and Linda Bandini, PhD, faculty of the UMMS-Shriver Center LEND and UCEDD programs.

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  3. In collaboration with UMass-Boston, the Shriver Center UCEDD will be carrying out a full randomized controlled trial of its "Health U" program, a family and behaviorally-based weight loss intervention for overweight adolescents with intellectual disabilities. The project is an R01 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and will be led by Richard Fleming, PhD, Associate Professor of Exercise & Health Sciences at UMass-Boston and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at UMMS.  Health U. has been designed and piloted by Dr. Fleming and Shriver Center colleagues Linda Bandini, PhD, Carol Curtin, MSW, James Gleason, MS, PT, who are co-investigators on the project.