Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial of 2 Federally Recommended Strategies to Reduce Excess Body Fat in Overweight, Low-Income Patients: MyPlate.gov vs Calorie Counting.

PURPOSE: Since 2011, US authorities have supported the following 2 approaches to healthier body fat composition: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Diabetes Prevention Program's calorie counting (CC) approach and the US Department of Agriculture's MyPlate (adherence to federal nutrition guidelines). The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of CC vs MyPlate approaches on satiety/satiation and on achieving healthier body fat composition among primary care patients. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing the CC and MyPlate approaches from 2015 to 2017. The adult participants were overweight, of low income, and were mostly Latine (n = 261). For both approaches, community health workers conducted 2 home education visits, 2 group education sessions, and 7 telephone coaching calls over a period of 6 months. Satiation and satiety were the primary patient-centered outcome measures. Waist circumference and body weight were the primary anthropometric measures. Measures were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. RESULTS: Satiation and satiety scores increased for both groups. Waist circumference was significantly decreased in both groups. MyPlate, but not CC, resulted in lower systolic blood pressure at 6 months but not at 12 months. Participants for both MyPlate and CC reported greater quality of life and emotional well-being and high satisfaction with their assigned weight-loss program. The most acculturated participants showed the greatest decreases in waist circumference. CONCLUSIONS: A MyPlate-based intervention might be a practical alternative to the more traditional CC approach to promoting satiety and facilitating decreases in central adiposity among low-income, mostly Latine primary care patients.

Comparative effectiveness trial comparing MyPlate to calorie counting for mostly low-income Latino primary care patients of a federally qualified community health center: study design, baseline characteristics.

BACKGROUND: Primary care-based behavior change obesity treatment has long featured the Calorie restriction (CC), portion control approach. By contrast, the MyPlate-based obesity treatment approach encourages eating more high-satiety/high-satiation foods and requires no calorie-counting. This report describes study methods of a comparative effectiveness trial of CC versus MyPlate. It also describes baseline findings involving demographic characteristics and their associations with primary outcome measures and covariates, including satiety/satiation, dietary quality and acculturation. METHODS: A comparative effectiveness trial was designed to compare the CC approach (n = 130) versus a MyPlate-based approach (n = 131) to treating patient overweight. Intervenors were trained community health workers. The 11 intervention sessions included two in-home health education sessions, two group education sessions, and seven telephone coaching sessions. Questionnaire and anthropometric assessments occurred at baseline, 6- and 12 months; food frequency questionnaires were administered at baseline and 12 months. Participants were overweight adult primary care patients of a federally qualified health center in Long Beach, California. Two measures of satiety/satiation and one measure of post-meal hunger comprised the primary outcome measures. Secondary outcomes included weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, dietary quality, sugary beverage intake, water intake, fruit and vegetable fiber intake, mental health and health-related quality of life. Covariates included age, gender, nativity status (U.S.-born, not U.S.-born), race/ethnicity, education, and acculturation. ANALYSIS: Baseline characteristics were compared using chi square tests. Associations between covariates and outcome measures were evaluated using multiple regression and logistic regression. RESULTS: Two thousand eighty-six adult patients were screened, yielding 261 enrollees who were 86% Latino, 8% African American, 4% White and 2% Other. Women predominated (95%). Mean age was 42 years. Most (82%) were foreign-born; 74% chose the Spanish language option. Mean BMI was 33.3 kg/m2; mean weight was 82 kg; mean waist circumference was 102 cm. Mean blood pressure was 122/77 mm. Study arms on key baseline measures did not differ except on dietary quality and sugary beverage intake. Nativity status was significantly associated with dietary quality. CONCLUSIONS: The two treatment arms were well-balanced demographically at baseline. Nativity status is inversely related to dietary quality. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02514889 , posted on 8/4/2015.

Program Capacity to Deliver Prevention Services to Children of Adult Clients Receiving Substance Use Disorder Treatment.

Children whose parents have a history of substance use are at elevated risk of developing substance use disorders (SUDs) and related debilitating behaviors. Although specialty treatment programs are uniquely positioned to deliver prevention care to children of adult clients, these programs may have limited capacity to implement prevention and early intervention care services, particularly in racial and ethnic minority communities. We merged data from program surveys and client records collected in 2015 to examine the extent to which program capacity factors are associated with the odds of delivering prevention and early intervention services for children of adult clients attending outpatient SUD treatment in low-income minority communities in Los Angeles County, California. Our analytic sample consisted of 16,712 clients embedded in 82 programs. Our results show that 85% of these programs reported delivering prevention care services, while 71% of programs delivered early intervention services. Programs with organizational climates supporting change and those that served a high number of clients annually were more likely to implement both prevention and early intervention practices. Programs accepting Medicaid payments and serving clients whose primary drug was marijuana were more than three times as likely to implement prevention services. Overall, our findings suggest both program- and client-level characteristics are associated with delivering preventive care offered to children of adult clients receiving SUD treatment in communities of color. As Medicaid has become a major payor of SUD treatment services and marijuana use has been legalized in California, findings identify capacity factors to deliver public health prevention interventions in one of the nation's largest public SUD treatment systems.

Prevalence of Substance Use Among Patients of Community Health Centers in East Los Angeles and Tijuana.

BACKGROUND: Given the increased use of psychoactive substances on the United States-Mexico border, a binational study (Tijuana, Mexico-Los Angeles, USA) was conducted to identify the prevalence of substance use in primary care settings. OBJECTIVES: To compare the prevalence and characteristics of patients at risk for substance use disorders in Tijuana and East Los Angeles (LA) community clinics with special attention paid to drug use. METHODS: This was an observational, cross-sectional, analytical study, comparing substance use screening results from patients in Tijuana and LA. The settings were 2 community clinics in LA and 6 in Tijuana. Participants were 2,507 adult patients in LA and 2,890 in Tijuana eligible for WHO Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) screening during March-October 2013. Patients anonymously self-administered the WHO ASSIST on a tablet PC in the clinic waiting rooms. RESULTS: Of eligible patients, 96.4% completed the ASSIST in Tijuana and 88.7% in LA (mean 1.34 minutes and 4.20 minutes, respectively). The prevalence of patients with moderate-to-high substance use was higher in LA than Tijuana for each substance: drugs 19.4% vs. 5.7%, alcohol 15.2% vs. 6.5%, tobacco 20.4% vs. 16.2%. LA patients born in Mexico had 2x the odds and LA patients born in the United States had 6x the odds of being a moderate-to-high drug user compared to Tijuana patients born in Mexico. CONCLUSIONS: Moderate-to-high drug use is higher in LA than in Tijuana but rates are sufficiently high in both to suggest that screening for drug use (along with alcohol and tobacco use) should be integrated into routine primary care of community clinics in both cities.

Adapting substance use brief interventions for adolescents: perspectives of adolescents living with adults in substance use disorder treatment.

BACKGROUND: Brief interventions (BIs) have shown potential to reduce both alcohol and drug use. Although BIs for adults have been studied extensively, little is known about how to adapt them to meet the needs and preferences of adolescents. This article examines adolescents' preferences to consider when adapting BIs for use with adolescents. METHODS: Eighteen adolescents (age 9-17 years) living in Los Angeles County with adults receiving substance use disorder treatment were interviewed and asked about their perspectives on how to adapt a BI originally developed for adults for use with adolescents. Questions focused on adolescents' preferences for who should deliver BIs, how BIs should be delivered, and what content they would want to be included in BIs. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded using summative content analysis. RESULTS: Adolescents did not express any discernable opinions concerning who delivers BIs or what content they would want to be included, but they did share perspectives on how BIs should be delivered. Most adolescents did not endorse incorporating text messaging or social media into BIs. Instead they preferred having BIs delivered face-to-face or over the telephone. They reported that they did not want BIs to incorporate text messaging or social media due to concerns about trust, the quality of information they would receive, and challenges communicating in writing instead of speaking. CONCLUSION: Although the study has limitations because of its small sample size, findings indicate that adolescents may not want text messaging or social media to be incorporated into BIs for substance use. These findings warrant further research and consideration, particularly as work to enhance BIs for adolescents continues.

A pilot replication of QUIT, a randomized controlled trial of a brief intervention for reducing risky drug use, among Latino primary care patients.

BACKGROUND: QUIT is the only primary care-based brief intervention that has previously shown efficacy for reducing risky drug use in the United States (Gelberg et al., 2015). This pilot study replicated the QUIT protocol in one of the five original QUIT clinics primarily serving Latinos. DESIGN: Single-blind, two-arm, randomized controlled trial of patients enrolled from March-October 2013 with 3-month follow-up. SETTING: Primary care waiting room of a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in East Los Angeles. PARTICIPANTS: Adult patients with risky drug use (4-26 on the computerized WHO ASSIST): 65 patients (32 intervention, 33 control); 51 (78%) completed follow-up; mean age 30.8 years; 59% male; 94% Latino. INTERVENTIONS AND MEASURES: Intervention patients received: 1) brief (typically 3-4 minutes) clinician advice to quit/reduce their risky drug use, 2) video doctor message reinforcing the clinician's advice, 3) health education booklet, and 4) up to two 20-30 minute follow-up telephone drug use reduction coaching sessions. Control patients received usual care and cancer screening information. Primary outcome was reduction in number of days of drug use in past 30days of the highest scoring drug (HSD) on the baseline ASSIST, from baseline to 3-month follow-up. RESULTS: Controls reported unchanged HSD use between baseline and 3-month follow-up whereas Intervention patients reported reducing their use by 40% (p<0.001). In an intent-to-treat linear regression analysis, intervention patients reduced past month HSD use by 4.5 more days than controls (p<0.042, 95% CI: 0.2, 8.7). Similar significant results were found using a complete sample regression analysis: 5.2 days (p<0.03, 95% CI: 0.5, 9.9). Additionally, on logistic regression analysis of test results from 47 urine samples at follow-up, intervention patients were less likely than controls to test HSD positive (p<0.05; OR: 0.10, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: Findings support the efficacy of the QUIT brief intervention for reducing risky drug use.