2011 Annual Report 1a.Objectives (from AD-416) An objective of the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU) being conducted in part under this cooperative agreement is to identify barriers and facilitators to adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DG) and examine how differential profiles of adherence relate to obesity in children and adults of the Delta region. The specific objective of this cooperative agreement is to establish and support a cooperative partnership between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) which will permit scientific work amongst Research Nutrition Scientists to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to assess DG adherence barriers and facilitators for African-American and Caucasian children and their caregivers of the Lower Mississippi Delta region and elsewhere in the U.S. 1b.Approach (from AD-416) The Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit (Delta OPRU), in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine and other research cooperators, will use the nominal group methodology with fifth graders and caretakers in the Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD) to identify barriers and facilitators to the adherence to national dietary and physical activity guidance for the prevention of obesity and reduced risk for obesity-related chronic disease. This data will be used to construct conceptually and culturally appropriate survey tools to further assess the adherence to the USDA Dietary Guidelines of African American and Caucasian children and their caregivers in the Lower Mississippi Delta region and elsewhere in the U.S. 3.Progress Report Across all six sites participating in the Healthy Eating and Life Style for Total Health (HEALTH) study, a total of 96 Nominal Group Technique (NGT) sessions were conducted. A total of 591 individuals participated across three racial/ethnic groups (i.e., African-, Euro-, and Hispanic American 5th grade children and cargivers of 5th grade children). The NGT's were evenly split to include the barriers and facilitators for the 8 MyPyramid components (7 food groups, 1 physical activity). The NGT data were processed by the data Coordinating Center. The final product from the detailed analyses of the NGT's was a survey on the bariers and facilitators to Dietary Guidelines adherence. This survey along with other questionnaires are currently being administered in a pilot study across all six sites. The Pilot study is being conducted with 267 caregivers/child dyads (caregiver and child in the same family) per racial/ethnic group (total of 800 caregivers and 800 children). The barriers and facilitators survey will be re-administered to 10% of the pilot group 7-14 days after the first administration to the exam, test-retest reliability. Monitoring of cooperator's performance and adherence to conditions of the agreement was by: a site visit; quarterly reports consisting of budgetary material, progress towards goals and objectives, and review of publications and manuscripts in progress; and numerous conference calls and emails.