Where Health and Horticulture Intersect: A Navajo Wellness Collaboration

Native Americans, including the Navajo, experience type-2 diabetes at four times the rate of the general U.S. population due in part to unhealthy diet and low levels of physical activity.” The Navajo Nation recently initiated a “junk food” tax to discourage unhealthy food choices on the reservation.  However, much of the Navajo Nation is considered a “food desert” leaving residents with few options for purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables.  Community gardens can improve the health of residents because: 1) gardeners often adopt healthier diets by consuming what they produce, 2) children of gardeners learn healthier dietary habits early in life, and 3) gardening is a form of physical activity.  

In order to address the issue of limited access to healthy foods, we developed a multi-component, theory-based intervention that integrates community gardens, educational workshops and community outreach in Navajo communities. The aims of the project are to: 1)  Estimate the effects of an integrated intervention on adoption of gardening practices, vegetable and fruit intake; and 2) Estimate the effects of the intervention on self-monitoring, self-efficacy, behavioral capability, and social norms related to gardening and vegetable and fruit consumption. The intervention emphasizes Navajo culture and tradition centered on story telling.  Yeégo Gardening! (“Let’s Garden!) was launched in 2014 after Navajo Nation  IRB approval.  Two eastern Navajo Nation communities allowed their gardens to be used as “outdoor classrooms” for technical workshops to address previously identified barriers to gardening (e.g. lack of information on how to start a garden, poor soil, lack of water, how and what to harvest).  Baseline and follow-up questionnaires were administered before and after the workshop series to consenting adults. For the 2015 growing season, we hosted a health fair/garden technique kick-off event with garden-based workshops coinciding with key aspects of gardening (e.g. seed selection, planting techniques, garden maintenance, when and what to harvest, and healthy cooking ideas).  We modified our 2014 curriculum from being more “Master-gardener-like”, to a more appropriate literacy level for beginning gardeners with little to no gardening knowledge. Preliminary results from the surveys will be presented.  If the pilot is successful, the long-term benefits would be a reduction in risk factors associated with type-2 diabetes.