This family, like many others in the newest Lower Rio Grande Valley colonias, lives in a trailer. Little more than four plywood walls and a roof, it was supplied by concerned neighbors after a fire destroyed the family home. Other more subtle catastrophes - low wages, menial work, unfinished schooling, seasonal and unreliable employment - ravage the hopes of families like this daily. Ensuring there is nourishing food on the table is the next challenge. Access to enough food is an issue for one in every seven households in Texas, and poverty in the Lower Rio Grande Valley makes food insecurity a reality in many homes, though no one knows exactly how many. Meanwhile, families like this one gather on the front steps, as do families across the country, to rest from a day's labors and to gain strength from one another to face those of the next.
Overview
Making a difference in the nutrition of families and communities is the purpose of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative, the first national nutrition research program to choose as its primary target the Hispanic population. The mission of the project is to improve the nutritional health of the population of the Lower Rio Grande Valley through effective nutrition awareness, education, intervention, and research at the family and community level.
Initiated by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2001, the effort has been undertaken by a consortium of academic institutions in south Texas. Expected to cost $6 million per year, the research will assess the nutrition and health needs of the region. Following collection of baseline data, interventions are expected not only to improve the health and nutritional status of communities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, but also to produce models that may be implemented on a larger scale in other areas of the United States.
The Lower Rio Grande Valley NIRI is unique in that it is the first national research program to target primarily the Hispanic population, with its disproportionate rates of nutrition-related chronic diseases, in order to develop nutrition interventions; implement and monitor population changes over time; and determine what benefits food, nutrition, and behavioral interventions contribute toward improving the quality of life for a specific region of the United States.