Emerging Programs and Initiatives
Emerging health issues provide a challenge for all Texas communities, shaped by a complex interaction of multiple factors that individuals and families must navigate to make choices for their optimal health. In response, Family and Community Health actively responds with innovative approaches to emerging health issues that better equip Texans with awareness, research-based knowledge and practical resources. The following programs and initiatives illustrate new and innovative approaches to help Texans thrive when it comes to their health and well-being.
Texas Active Policy, Research and Engagement Network
The Texas Active Policy, Research and Engagement Network, TAPREN, project aims to improve the health of Texans by promoting active living through community design. Supported by a $200,000 contract with the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention State Physical Activity and Nutrition, SPAN, program, TAPREN focuses on developing a statewide coordinated system of assessment, training and technical assistance. By leveraging the AgriLife Extension dissemination network, the project supports state and local efforts to increase physical activity through community-centered design strategies.
Texas Farmers, Ranchers and Educators Serving Healthy Texans and Reconnecting Agriculture to Youth in Schools
The Texas Farmers, Ranchers and Educators Serving Healthy Texans and Reconnecting Agriculture to Youth in Schools, FRESH TRAYS, program helps producers — farmers and ranchers — and schools, including early childcare centers, build connections to increase the amount of local fresh foods served to children across Texas. FRESH TRAYS is funded through a 3-year, $1.1 million contract with the Texas Department of Agriculture.
The REACHing Well Project
Rural Texans can face tremendous individual, interpersonal and community concerns in the adoption of healthful lifestyles in the prevention of chronic disease. Despite previous attempts to resolve such concerns, unique challenges persist around healthful food and physical activity access and behavior, necessitating novel, innovative educational and policy, systems and environment, PSE, approaches. Funded in partnership with the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity with the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the REACHing Well Project is employing a novel systematic, translational — theory-to-practice — approach to sustain connectivity to community and cultural influences on personal, valued choices for individuals and their families.
Well Church Initiative
Faith communities, specifically local churches, are primed to serve an integral role in enhancing healthy lifestyles within Texas communities. Alongside religion being an important social determinant of health and human flourishing, churches provide important social capital, span socioeconomic and social stratifications, and provide leadership from clergy who are often deemed to be local health educators for emerging health issues. Churches can be geographically located across communities with important physical capital, reach the most rural and health-disparate populations, and provide key access points and partnerships in Public Health and County Extension efforts. In response, the Well Church Initiative, WCI, seeks to provide education and resources across the faith-placed to faith-based continuum in support of church environments, wellness ministries and clergy who are seeking to positively impact the health and wellness of their communities.
Get Outside!
The Get Outside! program encourages families to implement daily outdoor and nature experiences into their lives in bingo card format to help boost their health, happiness and time together. This program typically lasts five weeks and can be used in partnership with a variety of learning programs for children, such as child care centers, home-based child care providers, elementary classrooms, after-school programs and libraries. The Get Outside! program was successfully launched in 2024 in partnership with schools, libraries and after-school programs. Fifty-two families from four counties participated in the program by registering in Howdy Health and completing bingo activities daily in and around their homes. In the summer of 2024, Get Outside! was expanded for suitability with an early childhood audience, and the program continues to be piloted and evaluated for effectiveness. This focus on nature-related programming has led to multiple agency-wide early child care conferences and health summits held within the past year with similar themes.
Infectious Disease Prevention
The EXCITE project is an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cooperative Extension System to engage Texas communities with holistic, infectious disease prevention education with a focus on primary prevention measures — nutrition and physical activity — and immunization that supports personal choice and autonomy.
Community Conversations on Health
Funded by the Texas Department of State Health Services, DSHS, the Community Conversations on Health, CCoH, project sought to develop an innovative policy, systems, environment and education, PSE-E, approach to better facilitate rapid communication with rural communities to enhance AgriLife Extension’s response with valuable health education programs and resources.
The Well Families Initiative
This family-focused initiative includes internal and external collaborations as well as newly created educational materials for families with young children that encourage active family engagement in positive health behaviors, such as regular physical activity, healthy meal preparation and so on. Through a multi-state collaboration, family engagement guides are being utilized for at-home use, with a section devoted to family health information and tips.
