Table of Contents
Report Shows Nutrition Deficit, Chronic Diseases
in Lower Rio Grande Valley
Sue Day, Ph.D., associate professor of
epidemiology and nutrition at the UT School
of Public Health, reports on a health study in
the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
The nutritional status of residents living in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, a south Texas region that is largely Hispanic and home to the poorest of the U.S. poor, has been detailed in a monograph released Aug. 23 by a 10-member consortium of government agencies and Texas universities.
“There are critical nutritional needs in this area,” said Sue Day, Ph.D., editor of the monograph and associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston.
The seven-chapter monograph, Nourishing the Future: The Case for Community-Based Research in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, includes the following findings:
- There are too few nutrition programs addressing major nutrition related chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease and cancer.
- Agencies have waiting lists for nutrition education and intervention in every county in the area, which includes Willacy, Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr counties.
- Few nutrition intervention programs use behavior change to improve health.
- The majority of nutrition programs target children.
- “Nutrition-related diseases are at staggering rates,” Day said.
- Rates of diabetes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley are higher than anywhere else in Texas.
- The rate of overweight male children is the highest in the state, with some areas exceeding national rates.
- Incidence of and mortality from cervical cancer are the highest in the nation.
- Two of the four counties do not have a gynecologist or obstetrician.
“Although the nutrition challenges in the Lower Rio Grande Valley seem enormous, our consortium is ready and prepared to tackle the challenge with the support of this strong community,” said Southern Plains Area Director Charles A. Onstad, Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Initiated by the USDA Agricultural Research Service in 2001, the consortium encourages community- based nutritional studies to improve the health of people living in the Valley.
The monograph is the first project of the consortium, known as Lower Rio Grande Valley Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative (LRGVNIRI). The coalition, based in Weslaco, Texas, is seeking approximately $6 million in federal funding to take the next steps toward preventing and controlling nutritionrelated diseases.
The initiative is the first national research program to focus on nutrition and nutrition-related chronic diseases in a primarily Mexican-American population.
Eighty-seven percent of the population in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is Mexican-American. The majority of every county is designated as medically underserved.
“We believe this research outcome provides a basis for successful nutrition intervention programs in the
Valley,” Day said. “We’ve got a huge health problem and a lack of resources. We’ve got to do something.”
Agencies and academic institutions in the consortium include: the UT School of Public Health at Houston and its Brownsville Regional Campus, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, UT-Pan American in Edinburg, Texas Cooperative Extension in College Station, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in Weslaco, the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas A&M University School of Rural Public Health at McAllen, Texas Southmost College and USDA Agricultural Research Service.
— By Pamela Cathion, Public Affairs