Joseph R Sharkey
Biographic Data
| ID | 237285 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joseph R Sharkey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joseph R |
| FAMILY NAME | Sharkey |
| SIGNATURE | SHARKEY J R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M Health Science Center |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 70 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Multilevel determinants of paternal and child physical activity
The results of this study suggest that the meaning participants attribute to being physically active, especially on the interpersonal level, contributes to reinforcing PA and promoting resilience for themselves and their children. These findings can inform the design of culturally grounded interventions that leverage fathers' interpersonal strategies and resilience (e.g., family-centered activities, addressing neighborhood safety) to support PA a…
Physical Activity Outcomes of a Culturally Tailored, Father-Focused, and Family-Centered Health Promotion Program for Mexican-Heritage Families
Despite the health benefits of physical activity (PA), many individuals do not meet PA recommendations. Family-centered PA approaches, particularly active engagement by Mexican-heritage fathers, may support family PA. This study reports PA outcomes of a culturally tailored, father-focused, and family-centered, program for Mexican-heritage families. Promotora researchers recruited participating families (n = 59, n = 42 complete cases), consisting …
Depressive Symptoms and Their Longitudinal Impact on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors Among Mexican-Heritage Youth
The purpose of this study is to examine the longitudinal impact of depressive symptoms on physical activity (PA) levels, sedentary behavior, and screen time among first-generation, Mexican-heritage youth. Mexican-heritage families were recruited by promotoras de salud from colonias in Hidalgo County, Texas. Participants (n = 200 youth, 116 families in final sample) completed at-home, interviewer-administered surveys once during the summer (June-J…
Conducting Physical Activity Research on Racially and Ethnically Diverse Adolescents Using Social Network Analysis
Adolescent physical activity (PA) is significantly impacted by peer behaviors through peer influence, peer selection, and popularity. However, the scales for these social constructs may not fully capture the detailed social networks and mechanisms responsible for PA behavior changes. This level of detail and granularity can be quantified and analyzed through social network analysis (SNA). To demonstrate the variety, utility, and efficacy of SNA i…
Promotoras de Salud in a Father-Focused Nutrition and Physical Activity Program for Border Communities
Promotoras de salud (promotoras) have been a valuable part of community research for Latino families, such as in the recruitment or delivery of health promotion programs. However, there has been limited discussion of how to integrate a promotora model into a father-focused program to support nutrition and physical activity within Latino families. This manuscript's purpose is to describe how to engage and collaborate with promotoras in a father-fo…
Designing for Multilevel Behavior Change
Fathers significantly influence family functioning, as coparents and partners, and must be part of family-based approaches to behavioral health interventions or programs. But little is known regarding how to support Latino fathers in health promotion within their family systems, specifically for Latino families living in border communities. Program development was embedded in a larger community-based grant and part of a longstanding academic-comm…
Qué Pasa Con Papá? Exploring Paternal Responsibilities and Physical Activity in Mexican-Heritage Families
Mexican-heritage children often achieve less physical activity (PA) than their counterparts and are at greater risk for associated comorbidities. Child PA is greatly influenced by their parents, yet researchers have rarely involved fathers in community health promotion. The purpose of this study is to examine Mexican-heritage fathers' perceptions of responsibilities and self-reported activities. Promotoras recruited fathers ( n = 300) from coloni…
Active Play Network Influences on Physical Activity Among Children Living in Texas Colonias
Physical activity (PA) is beneficial for child health; however, few children meet PA guidelines. Social relationships impact child PA behaviors; however, little is known about this effect in Mexican-heritage populations. This study aims to understand associations between self-reported play networks and PA among Mexican-heritage children. Mexican-heritage children from colonias along the Texas-Mexico border (n = 44; 54.5% girls; mean age = 9.89 ye…
Maternal Perceptions of Physical Activity Spaces for Children in Texas Border colonias
This study examined differences in mother-reported physical activity (PA) and screen time (ST) based on child sex and mothers’ perceptions of PA resources for Mexican-heritage (MH) children residing in Texas-Mexico border colonias. Mothers with children 8 to 10 years old ( n = 335) from colonias in south Texas reported if there were places for their child to be physically active and their child’s hours of PA and ST per day during the week and wee…
Papás Activos
Despite growing health disparities in Latino populations related to lack of physical activity (PA), little is known regarding the impact of social networks on PA and sedentary behavior among a sample of Latino fathers residing in functionally rural colonias . Fathers wore accelerometers and responded to questions regarding their self-efficacy and characteristics of who they were active with most often. Fathers ( n = 47) attained a mean of 73.3 mi…
Physical Activity Space Methodology for Assessment and Prioritization (Pasmap)
Despite benefits of physical activity (PA), most Americans are not regularly active, with notable disparities for residents of low-income communities. PA is positively correlated with resource availability and quality, which can be measured and quantified by PA resource assessment tools. However, community members' perceptions are often not considered. This study incorporates community perceptions with systematic environmental observations to ide…
Sibship, physical activity, and sedentary behavior
Younger siblings appear to emulate the physical activity behaviors of their older siblings during non-school summer months and sedentary behaviors of older siblings during school-time fall months, especially older brother-younger brother dyads. Family-based interventions to increase physical activity and decrease sedentary behavior are growing in popularity, but more work is needed to understand the role of sibling influences
Perceived Physical Activity Barriers of Mexican-Heritage Sibling Dyads
Objectives: Physical activity (PA) has been linked to many health benefits. Personal, social, and environmental factors can be barriers to PA and reduce odds of meeting PA recommendations. Sibling relationships have been shown to influence PA. This study evaluates PA barriers among siblings over 2 time periods. Methods: Eighty-seven sibling dyads from Mexican-heritage families residing in colonias along the Texas/Mexico border were recruited by p…
The Possibilities and Limits of Personal Agency
The food environment poses many challenges to low-income rural residents as they struggle to sustain themselves and their families. Rural settings in the United States are characterized by poorer food access and availability, including costlier and lower-quality produce, in comparison with urban settings. The practices employed by low-income residents to cope with these rural food environments have nutritional consequences and sometimes even broa…
Developing an agenda for research about policies to improve access to healthy foods in rural communities
This collaborative, trans-disciplinary, participatory process, created a map to guide and prioritize research about polices to improve healthy, affordable food access in rural communities
Physical and social environmental characteristics of physical activity for Mexican-origin children
These results suggest a complex relationship between dimensions of economic hardship (employment status, household income, etc...) and perceived opportunities and barriers of children's physical activity engagement during the school-year and summer. In this study, both barriers and opportunities increased from school-year to summer, further demonstrating that interactions among these characteristics need to be better understood and addressed when…
The relationship of perceptions of tap water safety with intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and plain water among US adults
Objective Research is limited on whether mistrust of tap water discourages plain water intake and leads to a greater intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). The objective of the present study was to examine demographic differences in perceptions of tap water safety and determine if these perceptions are associated with intake of SSB and plain water. Design The study examined perceptions of tap water safety and their cross-sectional association…
Government Capital, Intimate and Community Social Capital, and Food Security Status in Older Adults with Different Income Levels
Whether government-based forms of food assistance such as theSupplementalNutritionAssistanceProgram (SNAP), communal efforts including food pantries, aid from friends and family, or alternative means such as gardening are the appropriate means to reduce the prevalence of household food insecurity is a continuous source of policy contention. To inform this debate, we examine the relative importance of these forms of food assistance and acquisition…
Understanding contextual barriers, supports, and opportunities for physical activity among Mexican-origin children in Texas border colonias
This study suggests that PA environmental resources, barriers, and opportunities for colonias children are similar to previous studies and distinctively unique. As expected, built resources in these communities are limited and barriers exist; however, knowledge of PA opportunities and available PA resources within colonias households and neighborhoods offers insight to help guide future research, policy, and PA initiatives
Convenience stores are the key food environment influence on nutrients available from household food supplies in Texas Border Colonias
Although household members frequently purchased food items from supermarkets or dollar stores, it was spatial access to and frequent utilization of convenience food stores that influenced the amount of nutrients present in Texas border colonia households. These findings also suggest that households which participate in NSLP have reduced AE-adjusted nutrients available in the home. The next step will target changes within convenience stores to imp…
Empowerment of Promotoras as Promotora–Researchers in the Comidas Saludables & Gente Sana en las Colonias del Sur de Tejas (Healthy Food and Healthy People in South Texas Colonias) Program
Cultural repertoires and food-related household technology within colonia households under conditions of material hardship
This research points to the importance of socioeconomic and structural factors such as gender roles, economic poverty and material hardship as constraints on food choice and food-related behavior. In turn, it emphasizes the innovative practices employed by women residents of colonias to prepare meals under these constraints
Mobile and home-based vendors’ contributions to the retail food environment in rural South Texas Mexican-origin settlements
The effect of fast-food availability on fast-food consumption and obesity among rural residents
Association of Household and Community Characteristics with Adult and Child Food Insecurity among Mexican-Origin Households in Colonias along the Texas-Mexico Border
The Mexican-origin population is rapidly expanding; record numbers of individuals and families are experiencing food insecurity; and for those living in rural or underserved areas such as the colonias, the worst forms of food insecurity are an ongoing reality. The rates of households with adult and child food insecurity in this border area are alarming and among the highest reported. Clearly, systematic and sustained action on federal, state, and…
Food insecurity, social capital and perceived personal disparity in a predominantly rural region of Texas
It's who I am and what we eat. Mothers’ food-related identities in family food choice
Health-related quality of life among Mexican Americans living in colonias at the Texas-Mexico border
I Can Say that We Were Healthy and Unhealthy”
We examine the importance of the maintenance and reinvention of tradition to the food choices described by Mexican-American focus group participants recruited from nutritional health settings in central Texas. The pressures experienced while coping with changes in their food environment, such as shift-work and working outside the home, and transformations experienced in the food production system, provided structural barriers and opportunities to…
Government Capital, Intimate and Community Social Capital, and Food Security Status in Older Adults with Different Income Levels
Whether government-based forms of food assistance such as theSupplementalNutritionAssistanceProgram (SNAP), communal efforts including food pantries, aid from friends and family, or alternative means such as gardening are the appropriate means to reduce the prevalence of household food insecurity is a continuous source of policy contention. To inform this debate, we examine the relative importance of these forms of food assistance and acquisition…
Seasoning for the Soul
This article examines the idea of empowerment through food preparation and applies it to a specific context—that of the life of immigrant Mexican women from two South Texas settlement areas, or colonias. Based on ethnographic data gathered through participant observation by bilingual research teams of promotoras and formally educated health professionals embedded with participant families, we analyze the living situations of low-income Mexican wo…
The Possibilities and Limits of Personal Agency
The food environment poses many challenges to low-income rural residents as they struggle to sustain themselves and their families. Rural settings in the United States are characterized by poorer food access and availability, including costlier and lower-quality produce, in comparison with urban settings. The practices employed by low-income residents to cope with these rural food environments have nutritional consequences and sometimes even broa…
Physical Activity Space Methodology for Assessment and Prioritization (Pasmap)
Despite benefits of physical activity (PA), most Americans are not regularly active, with notable disparities for residents of low-income communities. PA is positively correlated with resource availability and quality, which can be measured and quantified by PA resource assessment tools. However, community members' perceptions are often not considered. This study incorporates community perceptions with systematic environmental observations to ide…
Mobile and home-based vendors’ contributions to the retail food environment in rural South Texas Mexican-origin settlements
Older adults' concerns about cognitive health
We studied concerns about cognitive health among ethnically diverse groups of older adults. The study was grounded in theories of health behaviour and the representation of health and illness. We conducted 42 focus groups (N=396, ages 50+) in four languages, with African Americans, American Indians, Chinese Americans, Latinos, Whites other than Latinos (hereafter, Whites) and Vietnamese Americans, in nine United States locations. Participants dis…
Variations in Body Mass Index Among Older Americans
The findings acknowledge relationships between health characteristics, disability, and BMI among a national sample of older adults. These results suggest that prevention and management of health conditions, basic ADL, and BMI may be reasonable targets for intervention
Variations in Nutritional Risk Among Black and White Women Who Receive Home-Delivered Meals
The maintenance of good nutritional status is a cornerstone of health, function, and quality of life. To assess indicators and correlates of high levels of nutritional risk, sociodemographic, functional status, and nutritional data were collected from a diverse sample of 729 older women. Results from ordered logit analysis indicated that being Black, having an income < or = 125% of the federal poverty level, living alone, and being in the younger…
Gender Differences in Physical Performance, Body Composition, and Dietary Intake in Homebound Elders
Considering that the most vulnerable subgroup of elders for poor nutritional status and functional decline is the increasing number of homebound women, we examined gender differences in physical performance, body composition, and dietary intake in a randomly recruited sample of 345 homebound elders (81% women, 48% black, > 65% income < $750/month). After controlling for demographic and health-related factors, the results from multivariate analyse…
Prospective Study of Black-White Differences in Food Insufficiency Among Homebound Elders
The findings suggest that race, independent of other characteristics, is associated with diminished food sufficiency over 1 year
Neighborhood Socioeconomic Deprivation and Minority Composition Are Associated with Better Potential Spatial Access to the Ground-Truthed Food Environment in a Large Rural Area
Availability of healthier options in traditional and nontraditional rural fast-food outlets
Convenience stores and supermarkets/grocery stores more than double the potential access to fast foods in this rural area than traditional fast-food outlets alone; however, traditional fast food outlets offer greater opportunity for healthier fast food options than convenience stores. A complete picture of fast food environment and the availability of healthier fast food options are essential to understand environmental influences on diet and hea…
Health-related quality of life among Mexican Americans living in colonias at the Texas-Mexico border
Food Access and Perceptions of the Community and Household Food Environment as Correlates of Fruit and Vegetable Intake among Rural Seniors
BACKGROUND: Although the importance of fruit and vegetable consumption to health has been well established, few studies have focused on access to fruits and vegetables in rural areas; even fewer examined the relationship between food access and fruit and vegetable consumption among seniors. METHODS: To examine the spatial challenges to good nutrition faced by seniors who reside in rural areas and how spatial access influences fruit and vegetable …
Using direct observations on multiple occasions to measure household food availability among low-income Mexicano residents in Texas colonias
This study highlights the value of documenting weekly household food supplies, especially in households where income resources may be more volatile. Clearly, the data show that a single HFI may miss the changes in availability--presence and amount--that occur among low-income Mexicano households who face challenges that require frequent purchase of foods and beverages. Use of multiple household food inventories can inform the development and impl…
I Can Say that We Were Healthy and Unhealthy”
We examine the importance of the maintenance and reinvention of tradition to the food choices described by Mexican-American focus group participants recruited from nutritional health settings in central Texas. The pressures experienced while coping with changes in their food environment, such as shift-work and working outside the home, and transformations experienced in the food production system, provided structural barriers and opportunities to…
Variations in Body Mass Index Among Older Americans
The findings acknowledge relationships between health characteristics, disability, and BMI among a national sample of older adults. These results suggest that prevention and management of health conditions, basic ADL, and BMI may be reasonable targets for intervention
The effect of fast-food availability on fast-food consumption and obesity among rural residents
Association of Household and Community Characteristics with Adult and Child Food Insecurity among Mexican-Origin Households in Colonias along the Texas-Mexico Border
The Mexican-origin population is rapidly expanding; record numbers of individuals and families are experiencing food insecurity; and for those living in rural or underserved areas such as the colonias, the worst forms of food insecurity are an ongoing reality. The rates of households with adult and child food insecurity in this border area are alarming and among the highest reported. Clearly, systematic and sustained action on federal, state, and…
Perceived and objective measures of the food store environment and the association with weight and diet among low-income women in North Carolina
Objective The present study aimed to highlight the similarities and differences between perceived and objective measures of the food store environment among low-income women and the association with diet and weight. Design Cross-sectional analysis of food store environment. Store level was characterized by: (i) the availability of healthy foods in stores where participants shop, using food store audits (objective); and (ii) summary scores of self…
Alternative components of the retail food environment. Healthy food availability in South Texas pulgas
Influences of food insecurity on eating behaviors among impoverished older women
It's who I am and what we eat. Mothers’ food-related identities in family food choice
Older adults' concerns about cognitive health
We studied concerns about cognitive health among ethnically diverse groups of older adults. The study was grounded in theories of health behaviour and the representation of health and illness. We conducted 42 focus groups (N=396, ages 50+) in four languages, with African Americans, American Indians, Chinese Americans, Latinos, Whites other than Latinos (hereafter, Whites) and Vietnamese Americans, in nine United States locations. Participants dis…
Seasoning for the Soul
This article examines the idea of empowerment through food preparation and applies it to a specific context—that of the life of immigrant Mexican women from two South Texas settlement areas, or colonias. Based on ethnographic data gathered through participant observation by bilingual research teams of promotoras and formally educated health professionals embedded with participant families, we analyze the living situations of low-income Mexican wo…
Food insecurity, social capital and perceived personal disparity in a predominantly rural region of Texas
Cultural repertoires and food-related household technology within colonia households under conditions of material hardship
This research points to the importance of socioeconomic and structural factors such as gender roles, economic poverty and material hardship as constraints on food choice and food-related behavior. In turn, it emphasizes the innovative practices employed by women residents of colonias to prepare meals under these constraints
Mobile and home-based vendors’ contributions to the retail food environment in rural South Texas Mexican-origin settlements
Understanding contextual barriers, supports, and opportunities for physical activity among Mexican-origin children in Texas border colonias
This study suggests that PA environmental resources, barriers, and opportunities for colonias children are similar to previous studies and distinctively unique. As expected, built resources in these communities are limited and barriers exist; however, knowledge of PA opportunities and available PA resources within colonias households and neighborhoods offers insight to help guide future research, policy, and PA initiatives
Convenience stores are the key food environment influence on nutrients available from household food supplies in Texas Border Colonias
Although household members frequently purchased food items from supermarkets or dollar stores, it was spatial access to and frequent utilization of convenience food stores that influenced the amount of nutrients present in Texas border colonia households. These findings also suggest that households which participate in NSLP have reduced AE-adjusted nutrients available in the home. The next step will target changes within convenience stores to imp…
Empowerment of Promotoras as Promotora–Researchers in the Comidas Saludables & Gente Sana en las Colonias del Sur de Tejas (Healthy Food and Healthy People in South Texas Colonias) Program
Developing an agenda for research about policies to improve access to healthy foods in rural communities
This collaborative, trans-disciplinary, participatory process, created a map to guide and prioritize research about polices to improve healthy, affordable food access in rural communities
Medicine (38 works) · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet (25 works) · Gerontology (23 works) · Environmental health (22 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Demography (15 works) · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations (15 works) · Geography (14 works) · Public health (13 works) · Sociology (13 works)