Learning Objective #1: Describe ways that students can participate in an interdisciplinary community-based participatory research program

Learning Objective #2: Discuss how and what students can learn about research and their clinical disciplines through participation in a community-based participatory research program

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Healthy Weigh/El camino saludable (HW) is a community-based participatory research (CBPR) and service/service-learning program in a primarily low-income, Hispanic and African American community, that includes bilingual and monolingual Spanish and English speakers. HW helps families adopt healthy eating and activity patterns that enable them to attain/maintain healthy weights. The program includes nutrition and physical activity classes, family meals with directed meal conversations, child care, and transportation. Funded through a United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County obesity prevention grant and supported by in-kind contributions from Texas Christian University, HW has involved nursing, nutrition/dietetics, kinesiology, movement science, social work, and medical students in assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Students served as educators, exercise leaders, coordinators of meal preparation and service, table talk leaders, child care workers, health screeners, and research assistants. Class assignments, internship requirements, paid employment, community service expectations, and personal commitment to the community and/or program were primary reasons for student participation. Helping students learn to practice effectively with people from different racial, ethnic, lingual, economic and educational cultures was a key challenge. Students and faculty investigators discuss learning outcomes, perceptions, and strategies for recruiting and engaging students throughout the research program. Connections between the principles of CBPR and student engagement in HW are identified.