Development and Evaluation of an Inter-generational Lifestyle Intervention to Improve Health Outcomes among Low-Income Families

Jiying Ling, PhD, MS, RN, is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University College of Nursing.  She received a Master's in Science in biostatistics and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Louisville in 2013.  She started her postdoctoral fellowship and career at the Michigan State University College of Nursing in 2014.  Her primary research focuses on pediatric health behavior promotion and childhood obesity prevention.  She recently developed and tested an innovative inter-generational intervention to help preschoolers establish lifelong healthy habits by actively involving their parents with a companion Facebook program. Dr. Ling has published 41 manuscripts, 19 as first author, and has received grant funding from multiple sources.  She is an Associate Editor for the journal BMC Public Health.  She has received many prestigious awards, including the Michigan State University Faculty Enrichment and Practice Awards, American Nurses Association Michigan Research Presentation Winner Award, Harriet H. Werley New Investigator Award, Health Promotion Behaviors Across the Lifespan Research Interest Group's New Investigator Award, and Pediatric Research Interest Group's Early Investigator Award from Midwestern Nursing Research Society.

Dr. Ling's presentation will describe the process used to develop an inter-generational lifestyle intervention for low-income Head Start children; discuss the use of Facebook in a pilot intervention study; describe the application of dose response analysis; and discuss the steps taken that led to submission of an R21 proposal on this topic and the current status of the proposal.