Anna Yeo, PhD

U.S. urban children are more likely to have poor asthma outcomes and to also have obesity. Diet has the potential to target both asthma and obesity, but more research is needed to understand how diet quality, quantity and timing are related to asthma. Urban children with asthma may face food and asthma-related environmental and behavioral factors that can affect their daily diet. Understanding these factors will help develop an effective intervention for this population. While multi-day diet assessments are essential, these measures can be difficult to complete, especially for highly burdened, urban families. To better answer these questions, we will assess urban children’s daily diet and asthma activity for seven days, using objective and self-report measures. We will interview children with asthma and their caregivers about barriers and facilitators to a healthy diet. We also aim to pilot a smartphone-based diet assessment method and compare it to a traditional food diary method.

Update: We are interviewing families about what hinders or helps children with asthma to have a healthy diet. We are also working with our collaborators to pilot a smartphone-based diet assessment method and compare it to a traditional food diary method. We are recruiting and enrolling families to participate in the daily observational protocol. Data generated from this study will demonstrate real-time associations between dietary patterns and pediatric asthma activity, as well as asthma- and food-related barriers and facilitators to a healthy diet in urban children. The findings could result in a future lifestyle intervention to improve asthma outcomes and comorbid overweight/obesity in this population.