Postdoctoral fellow Armando Peña in the Department of Health & Wellness Design was recently awarded a diversity supplement from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities in the amount of $219,918. This is part of the R01-funded project “Delivering Food Resources & Kitchen Skills (FoRKS) to Adults with Food Insecurity and Hypertension: An RCT” with principal investigators (PIs) Richard Holden, Ph.D., chair of Health & Wellness Design; and Daniel Clark, Ph.D. from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
"Food insecurity has the strongest ties to hypertension (as opposed to other metabolic risk factors)," says Dr. Peña, who shares that high concentrations of salt in processed foods is one of the contributing factors. "We see hypertension at disproportionately higher rates in Black and Hispanic populations, compared to White, so we want to design interventions in the future that resonate in culturally relevant ways."
Dr. Peña shares that when he was growing up in a Mexican family near the border in Somerton, AZ, highly processed food consumption and takeout were a "way of life." Dr. Peña says it was only due to his interest in exercise and nutrition as a professional career that prompted him to begin adopting healthier habits over time. Indeed, an estimated 40 percent of people with hypertension recruited for the study will also have type 2 diabetes.
"What is unique about this intervention is it addresses food insecurity directly—we deliver the food to the participants and offer virtual cooking classes while also providing the kitchen tools needed," says Dr. Peña. "A lot of programs will provide nutrition education and that’s great, but you are still putting the burden of responsibility on that person to retain that knowledge and then go out into the real world and somehow know how to navigate food systems and prepare and cook the food. Teaching skills that are needed like navigating the grocery stores and cooking, preparing, and storing food is an innovative approach that we are testing to see if it is effective in improving health outcomes. The diversity supplement will prepare the intervention for future implementation."
Part of the diversity supplement will also include opportunities for implementation science training with the help of Dr. Peña’s mentors Dr. Holden and Deanna Reinoso, M.D. of Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis.
Dr. Holden says that embedding Dr. Peña on a funded project was the best way for him to learn first-hand how to run clinical trials for nutrition interventions in a high-risk population.
Dr. Peña’s role in FoRKS is crucial, according to Dr. Holden, because his work will help the team document "what changes are required and made to the implementation of an intervention once it is put into practice in a safety net health system."
Dr. Holden adds, "Although the intervention was designed by and for front-line Eskenazi Health clinicians, we suspected there would be changes and implementation challenges. And there were, from the rise in food costs to challenges related to participant attendance and meal delivery to unexpected barriers faced by individual patients. The supplement allows us to document and understand these implementation factors by observing the process and interviewing the participants and implementers. Understanding the implementation can also explain the parent study’s findings regarding intervention efficacy and cost-effectiveness."
In addition to this most recent accomplishment, Dr. Peña was one of the recipients of the 2024 Building Bridges Award for his community-engaged research to address type 2 diabetes disparities among the Latino community using intergenerational and life course approaches. He is also passionate about mentoring the next generation of IU Bloomington scholars from underrepresented minority groups.
"Armando is a hardworking and talented researcher who is uniquely passionate about helping the surrounding community," says Dr. Holden. "He is a connector who has organized others around his cause and will one day soon be an effective leader. Armando is motivated by collaborating with and mentoring others, which makes him a welcome contributor to our department."
Learn more about our SPH-B faculty and students and their local and global impact here.