Project Grant R01NR022295

The National Institute of Nursing Research awarded Pennsylvania State University, operating as Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, $760,237 on August 1, 2026, under the Nursing Research program (CFDA 93.361) to conduct a randomized controlled trial of a multicomponent gardening intervention for adults with cardiovascular disease risk and their families.

The research, titled "Growing Healthy Hearts," tests a six-month remotely delivered intervention that integrates fruit and vegetable gardening, DASH-based nutrition education, cooking skills instruction, and peer support delivered via Zoom and a private Facebook group. The intervention targets sustained behavior change in fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity by leveraging gardening as an entry point that aligns with participants' values and supports autonomy, competence, and relatedness, building on self-determination theory. The study addresses the public health challenge that fewer than ten percent of U.S. adults meet recommended daily fruit and vegetable consumption and fewer than thirty percent meet recommended weekly physical activity targets, both of which are associated with cardiovascular disease risk.

Performance of work will occur in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with an ultimate completion date of May 31, 2031. The funding mechanism is a Project Grant, an investigator-initiated research award supporting clinical or non-clinical nursing research.