HOPE LAB
Areas of Interest
Food as Medicine Initiative
As part of a multi-site national clinical trial, NutriCare, Hope Lab is invested in the Food as Medicine Initiative. Research has demonstrated over time the influence a healthy dietary pattern has on the prevention of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain types of cancer. The Food as Medicine initiative recognizes dietary interventions can be used as a therapeutic approach to managing certain health conditions and their accompanying unique nutritional needs. The initiative focuses on collaboration to provide comprehensive care that addresses both medical and nutritional needs.
Biobehavioral Human Interventions
Our biobehavioral human interventions are based in established theory, integrating approaches proven efficacious in current behavior change literature. Further, our research gardens (HOPE Gardens) serve as an enriched environment that fosters positivity, healing, and hope for change. Through the combination of this enriching atmosphere, theory-based design, individualized counseling support, and group education, our biobehavioral interventions support individuals in a variety of ways, facilitating improvements in dietary patterns, physical activity levels, and biomarkers of health. Our previous garden-based studies have tested evidence-based biobehavioral interventions for multiple at-risk cohorts, including low-resource families and survivors of cancer, to achieve optimal cancer preventive dietary and physical activity patterns.
Motivational Interviewing
In HOPE Lab's research, motivational interviewing (MI) is used as an evidence-based approach to assist individuals in overcoming cognitive barriers to behavior change. MI provides an autonomy-supportive approach to counseling, enabling an individualized and tailored approach to tackling behavior change. The HOPE Lab combines novel technologies and remote communication methods designed to complement MI to increase the adoption and maintenance of positive lifestyle behaviors and to facilitate self-management. This highly personalized and tailored counseling focuses on the attainment and execution of self-regulatory skills to empower survivors to exercise greater control over their behaviors.
Enriched Environments
HOPE Lab provides a supportive environment to encourage interactions with study team members, volunteers, and fellow research participants for social connectedness and to provide opportunities for social learning. Further, HOPE Gardens serve as an enriched environment, often lauded as an “urban oasis,” where social support and physical connections with nature serve as powerful instruments for change. For children, this environment fosters fun experiences to promote adventurous eating and leisure-time physical activity, while survivors of cancer embrace it as a low-stress environment to interact with others who "get" the cancer experience. The support provided by HOPE Lab is not limited to the garden or a physical classroom. Team members provide individualized care via remote platforms, fully embracing and adapting to technology-based delivery through personalized videos, one-on-one counseling, and more.
Translational Clinical Research
A foundational component of HOPE Lab’s research is the integration of clinical and translational science to demonstrate clinically-meaningfully and biologically-relevant changes in biomarkers of health and behavior change. These include novel assessments relevant to cancer prevention and survivorship to glean data on the potential long-term risks of comorbidities and cancer recurrence, such as sonography or computed tomography scans to evaluate body composition. Additionally, HOPE Lab employs complementary traditional data collection techniques, such as food frequency questionnaires, as well as biomarkers of dietary exposure, such as skin carotenoids and urinary metabolites. To further increase the translation of findings and understand mechanistic underpinnings of observed improvements in health and behavior, additional investigations into the impact of HOPE Lab’s interventions on plasma metabolomic profiles and microbial populations within the gut are also underway.
