Social & Behavior Research

Healthy Living

IHA Healthy Living research promotes health and reduces chronic disease. It engages community members in intervention programs to spur positive lifestyle changes. The programs improve behavioral health and overall wellness within communities and populations. They aim to reduce health disparities.

Through the Healthy Living program, IHA translates its discoveries in responsive agriculture and precision nutrition to community settings.

Custom-tailored community intervention

Healthy Living programs engage people of all ages: young children and their families, adolescents, and older adults. Although the programs pay particular attention to rural and underserved groups, they benefit urban and rural communities alike.

IHA scientists tailor these programs to fit various contexts: personal, cultural, community, and environmental. Scientists design the programs to be cost effective, easy to sustain, and scalable.

Before launch, programs undergo evaluation to ensure that they are relevant and appropriate to the communities they will serve.

Project highlight

Strong hearts, healthy communities

Finding new ways to fight cardiovascular disease

Older women in rural communities are at particular risk of cardiovascular disease, the #1 cause of death in the U.S.

To help this population achieve better health, IHA researchers launched Strong Hearts, Healthy Communities 2.0. This intervention program significantly improved fitness among women over 40 who had sedentary lifestyles.

The program provided skill-based nutrition education. It made it easy for subjects to become physically active.

Women in the program didn’t just get fit—they stayed fit. That’s a sign of the program’s success. Maintaining healthful behaviors is key to achieving clinical improvements and public health impact.

Find out more

Progress reports & future plans

Project snapshot

There are currently 14 active Healthy Living projects operating in community-based settings.

64 urban and rural counties are engaged
There are more than 4,000 active study participants

Scholarly achievements

In 2023, the Healthy Living team achieved the following:

24 new publications in high-impact journals
22 national and international presentations
Funding from USDA, NIH and the American Heart Association

Future plans

Additional community-focused projects will actively involve local voices and collaborate with residents, ensuring the research is both meaningful and responsive to the community’s unique challenges.

Recent publications

Partnerships

The Healthy Living program has established more than 50 partnerships. Among them are the following:

AgriLife Extension
Academic groups
Faith-based organizations
Health centers, clinics, and hospital groups
Public school systems
Civic and community organizations
Farmers and farmers’ market associations
Assisted living facilities

To all of our partners:

Thank you for your collaboration and insights. Your involvement is making a positive difference in the health of your community.

Associate director for Healthy Living Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, Ph.D., R.D.N., L.D., C.S.C.S

Rebecca Seguin-Fowler, Ph.D., R.D.N., L.D., C.S.C.S., is associate director for the Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture, IHA. As a public health scientist with expertise in community-based nutrition and physical activity intervention research, she provides leadership for the organization’s social and behavioral intervention research initiatives via the IHA’s Healthy Living program.

Meet Dr. Seguin-Fowler