2009 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 All of the protocols for completing objective 1 have been developed and approved by the Healthy Eating and Lifestyle for Total Health (HEALTH) Project Steering Committee. These protocols include cognitive interview scripts, the preambles, recruitment, and publications/presentations/ancillary studies. All of the protocols are compiled into the HEALTH Manual of Procedures. A collaborative tool (SharePoint) that serves as a repository for protocol documents and materials that will be used across the entire project has been established. Cognitive interviews have been completed at all sites. Nominal group sessions (NGS) will be finalized and completed Fall 2009. Four of the six sites are in the field conducting the formative data collection. The other two sites will begin Fall 2009. All sites were trained and retrained by content experts from the Coordinating Center, the University of Alabama, Birmingham, on the cognitive interviews and nominal group techniques (NGT) (Delta OPRU(11 participants); GFNHRC(21 participants); HNRC(15 participants); BHNRC(9 participants); CNRC(7 participants); and WHNRC(7 participants)). All sites have received IRB approval and schools have been contacted and they have agreed to participate (Delta OPRU(45 schools); HNRCA(13 schools); CNRC(15 schools);WHNRC(30 schools) and BHNRC(10 schools). Monitoring of cooperator's performance and adherence to conditions of the agreement was acomplished by review of materials posted to SharePoint HEALTH site, one site visit, monthly meeting minutes, conference calls and numerous emails.