Traditional approaches to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other chronic disease prevention through nutrition and physical activity behavior change interventions fail in part due to their inability to…

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Texas A&M Agrilife Research $999,323 on September 15, 2025, under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to evaluate a digital version of the StrongPeople Strong Hearts (SPSH) intervention for cardiovascular disease risk reduction.

The recipient will deliver nutrition and active living education through the SPSH mobile application to 240 women at risk for cardiovascular disease, evaluate weight, nutrition, physical activity, and other health outcomes in participants, provide educational research experiences to undergraduate students pursuing health-related research careers, and develop and refine the SPSH leader training program in preparation for broad dissemination. The intervention adapts an existing evidence-based health behavior change program for mobile delivery and incorporates engagement design to address high dropout rates and limited effectiveness observed in prior digital health interventions.

Performance runs from September 15, 2025, through September 14, 2029, at College Station, Texas. Texas A&M Agrilife Research is a child entity of The Texas A&M University System, a state government entity and 1862 land-grant research institution. The award is structured as a Project Grant, the standard assistance type for AFRI competitive awards supporting focused investigations into agricultural and food research priorities.

Traditional approaches to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other chronic disease prevention through nutrition and physical activity behavior change interventions fail in part due to their inability to reach individuals at the scale necessary to impact public health. Mobile application (APP) technologies have the potential to address this shortcoming by increasing the uptake and impact of nutrition and physical activity interventions, expanding programmatic reach, and reducing the resources required for intervention delivery. While previous trials demonstrate the promise of digital health behavioral change interventions, the observed effects in these trials are small and dropout rates are often high, highlighting the need to improve engagement and effectiveness to achieve the potential of digital interventions. We aim to address these needs in this project, which will evaluate a digital version of the strongpeople strong hearts (spsh) intervention. In contrast to many previous digital interventions, we have adapted an existing evidence-based health behavior change intervention for delivery through a mobile APP. We have also designed the spsh digital intervention with an aim of maintaining engagement. The long-term goal of our work is to develop effective health behavior change programs suitable for broad dissemination and enhanced sustainability to ultimately improve public health. The overall objective of this integrated project is to deliver nutrition and active living education through the spsh digital program to reduce cardiovascular disease risk. The project objectives are: 1) deliver the spsh digital program to 240 women at risk for CVD, 2) evaluate weight, nutrition, physical activity, and other health outcomes in spsh digital participants, 3) provide educational research experiences to undergraduate students interested in health-related research careers, and 4) develop and refine spsh leader training program and implementation in preparation for broad dissemination. This project will leverage the existing, long-standing relationship between texas a & m agrilife research/institute for advancing health through agriculture (IHA) and texas a & m agrilife extension. Project team members at texas a & m agrilife research/institute for advancing health through agriculture (IHA) will provide overall project management, conduct research activities to evaluate the effects of the spsh digital program in the target population, and provide education opportunities to undergraduate students interested in nutrition, physical activity, and health outcomes research through summer internships. Family and community health extension agents will lead delivery of the spsh digital program. Members of both organizations will work collaboratively to develop and refine spsh digital leader training materials and leader toolkit. Successful completion of the project objectives will provide an evidence base and materials to support future dissemination of the spsh d, igital program.