View clinical trials related to Wait-List Control.
Filter by:The goals of the program are to help struggling fathers and father figures improve the parent-child relationship, sustain healthy marriages and relationships (and help those who are single identify ways to enter into safe and supportive relationships that may ultimately lead to marriage), and identify and support fathers in their economic stability and employment objectives. These outcomes will be achieved through a series of workshops addressing responsible parenting and marriage and relationships as well as a complement of employment services and comprehensive case management. Additional services needed by participants will be identified and provided either through wraparound programming provided by JFCS or through collaborative agreements with local partner agencies. Additionally, Ignite will incorporate a comprehensive employment program combining both job and career advancement.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are repeatedly shown to predict negative biopsychosocial health outcomes, including obesity. High rates of ACEs in communities are often paralleled by high obesity rates, and higher ACEs, such as child abuse, have been shown to positively predict later obesity and use of unhealthy weight control behaviors. Thus, in light of the high prevalence of and potential causal links between early-life stress and obesity, there is a critical need to further explore the ACEs-obesity relationship in order to understand and to improve obesity outcomes. Given the adverse impact of ACEs and obesity on brain health, two potential high impact treatment targets of the ACEs-obesity relationship will be explored in the proposed pilot study: 1) markers of neurocognition (i.e., executive function; EF) and, 2) brain health/plasticity (i.e., neurotrophins like brain-derived neurotropic factor; BDNF and glial cell derived neurotrophic factor; GDNF). Specifically, this trial will be the first to 1) Identify whether brain markers of neural health (e.g., neurotrophins) are related to ACES and/or neurocognitive EF performance, and 2) Test whether neuronal or glial neurotrophins predict or change in response to weight loss. Addressing these two needs advances the science of whether ACEs and EF levels are differentially related to brain indices of neural and glial health/plasticity. Results of this pilot may identify a neural substrate and/or profile by which ACEs promote obesity that may ultimately be more amenable to pharmacologic intervention in order to promote weight loss outcomes. This group-treatment trial will assess 48 obese adults randomized to either an 8-week behavioral weight loss treatment group (n=24) or a wait list control (n=24). Our primary endpoints are percent reductions in body weight and changes in neurotrophins (e.g., BDNF, GDNF). Weight and blood specimens will be assessed at baseline, post-treatment (8-weeks), and follow-up (12-weeks). In testing these endpoints, we will meet the following aims: 1) To test whether neurotrophins are related to ACEs and executive function (EF), and 2) To test if neurotrophins predict or change in response to weight loss trajectory. ****The above description describes the study design that was terminated prematurely due to Covid-19. The following description is the modified protocol. The treatment described above was canceled and the present study focused on the baseline visit. In this visit, participants participated in a stress reactivity protocol, so instead of looking at change in BDNF, GDNF, and inflammatory markers after weight loss treatment, we looked at change in BDNF, GDNF, and inflammatory markers after the stress activity task. This information will tell us about how ACEs status is related to these biomarkers at baseline and in response to stress.