U of U Researchers Secure $4 Million CDC Grant to Expand Rural Access to Lifestyle Change Programs
Dr. Andy King, Dr. Paul Estabrooks, Dr. JD Smith, and Dr. Elizabeth Sloss.
University of Utah researchers representing four different units across campus have been awarded a four-million-dollar grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve participation in lifestyle change programs among rural communities in Utah and across the Mountain West. The interdisciplinary team includes Dr. Andy King (Department of Communication), Dr. Paul Estabrooks (Kinesiology), Dr. JD Smith (Population Health Sciences), and Dr. Elizabeth Sloss (Nursing), who all serve as co-Principal Investigators (PIs) and will collaborate to lead the multi-year project.
The collaboration itself embraces the Vice President for Research’s pillars for 2025 to 2030 by fostering truly interdisciplinary research. Each of the PIs brings unique expertise from their respective colleges and schools— Humanities (King), Health (Estabrooks), Medicine (Smith), and Nursing (Sloss)—offering an uncommon level of cross-campus, One U integration around a pressing public health issue. Their combined efforts aim to increase the reach, visibility, and engagement of lifestyle change intervention programs for rural residents. These programs, which include diabetes-prevention initiatives and healthy weight-management support, offer evidence-based approaches to improving one’s health but remain underutilized in many rural communities.
The project includes two major components. Component A will develop and test ways to improve how rural residents perceive and engage with these health programs. The team will use community-centered research approaches to identify what program features resonate most, and they will evaluate communication strategies, including technologies such as bi-directional text messaging, to better support informed decision-making about enrollment. This work will draw on previous work from the Mountain West Family Healthy Weight Collaborative here at the University of Utah, as well as the CDC Prevention Research Center Network, to ensure rural voices shape every stage of the approaches implemented.
Component B will establish the Lifestyle Change Implementation Research Network Coordinating Center (LCIRN-CC), which will support communities, practitioners, and researchers nationwide in implementing and sustaining evidence-based lifestyle change interventions. The center will provide coordination, training, mentorship, and technical assistance, building on the Mountain States Partnership for Community-Engaged Dissemination & Implementation Science Training Institute. Its aim is to strengthen both the science and practice of implementation so these health programs can reach more people and continue to do so long-term.
Dr. Andy King, Professor of Communication and a project PI, emphasized the importance of the interdisciplinary nature of the work and the value of the partnerships for innovating research and practice in this area of public health.
“I’m excited about the true interdisciplinary nature of this project. Bringing together experts from communication, kinesiology, population health sciences, and nursing allows us to pursue a project with complementary expertise that will produce innovative, sustainable public health solutions. I’m jazzed about the collaboration and to work with such a great group of people to try to have a positive impact on population health.”
Ultimately, the team’s goal is simple but ambitious: strengthen the reach and relevance of evidence-based lifestyle change programs and, in doing so, support healthier futures for rural communities.