Cherise Harrington
North Carolina Central University, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Young adults tend to gain weight during their college years, more so than peers who do not attend college, and that weight gain raises lifelong risk of diabetes and other preventable chronic disease. Campus life shapes what students eat and how much they move, so a university is both a source of the problem and a place to intervene.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Social Science
- Topics
obesity
pre-diabetes
weight management
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Adapt BeFAB, a digital weight-management program first tested in postpartum women with overweight or obesity, for young adults in a historically Black college or university setting, informed by community stakeholder input.
- Tailor intervention content to the resources and barriers of the campus environment, using behavioral techniques such as tailored feedback and self-monitoring rather than education alone.
- Conduct an efficacy trial of BeFAB-HBCU measuring its impact on health behaviors, attainment of healthy weight, and physical activity in young adults with excess weight or pre-diabetes.
- Examine how the social environment, community context, personal beliefs and behaviors, and biophysiological factors relate to the effectiveness of weight-management efforts in this population.
More about the research
This project adapts a digital weight-management program for young adults at a historically Black college or university setting and tests whether it works.
Why it matters
Excess weight and pre-diabetes in young adulthood set up decades of chronic disease risk and drive healthcare costs. A tailored mobile program could give students at limited-resource universities a practical, low-cost way to manage weight and increase physical activity at a formative age, and the trial would show whether community-informed adaptation of an existing digital intervention transfers to a new population.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Carmina Valle
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether a 6-month mHealth weight-loss program tailored to adolescent and young adult cancer survivors produces greater weight loss at 6 months than a self-guided program, in a nationwide randomized trial of 240 survivors.
Rebecca Krukowski
University of Virginia, VA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test the effect of five lifestyle components on 12-month weight loss in 608 adults taking second-generation anti-obesity medications, using a 2x2x2x2x2 factorial trial. The components are an education session, phone coaching, and digital diet, activity and weight self-monitoring.
Carmen Samuel-Hodge
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Identify which combination of four family-centered components (session number, in-person vs. online delivery, communication/conflict training, cohesion training) produces the most weight loss at 6 months, using the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST).
The school
North Carolina Central University: 4 labs on PI Pages, $16M a year on research, 2 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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