But that isn't necessarily the case in the more rural communities of the Brazos Valley.

Joe Sharkey, director of the Texas Healthy Aging Research Network Center at A&M and a registered dietitian working for the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, wanted to know exactly what options were available to Brazos Valley residents.

Methodically, Sharkey and a couple of graduate students set out several years ago to cover the Brazos Valley's 4,500 square miles. Using GPS technology, they mapped each store and documented what products were available, how much they cost and if healthier options were visible.

"We know where places are. We don't know where people actually go," Sharkey said, explaining how his research is involved in a grant recently awarded to Aggie researchers. "We don't know how and when they go, and for what."

The $6.8 million, five-year grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health will allow researchers to study rural and minority health issues -- focusing particularly on helping diabetics use computer technology to track blood-sugar levels, aiding rural families in making better food choices and preventing childhood obesity.

The money was given jointly to the Center for the Study of Health Disparities within Texas A&M's College of Education and Human Development and the Center for Community Health Development within the School of Rural Public Health. It was awarded specifically by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Rae Lynn Mitchell, spokeswoman for the School of Rural Public Health, said the pilot programs could be used as national models.

"All this is [designed] to get to a public health intervention," Mitchell said. "How can we help?"

Ken McLeroy, social and behavioral health professor and principal investigator for the project, said the work is designed to build the capacity of Texas A&M and the Health Science Center to begin addressing disparities in health between population groups such as rural and urban, and male and female and among different ethnicities.

As its name implies, public health traditionally has focused on improving the general health of the people, McLeroy said. Public health campaigns on topics such as cholesterol and blood pressure are designed to do just that. But those campaigns don't always have the same impact on all people, McLeroy said.

"Some groups benefit more than others," he said, explaining that the grant was designed to address discrepancies found among rural and minority residents. "What we wind up with is significant disparities."

McLeroy said rural areas and inner cities have similar rates for obesity, injury and death. That's because the people living in both areas often have poor access to health care, he explained.

Low-income residents are the most at risk, McLeroy said, noting that better supermarkets in richer areas offer superior, more costly foods that often aren't available in poor, rural areas. And rural women are at a greater risk than both their urban counterparts and rural men, Sharkey noted.

"That's part of what we're really trying to understand," Sharkey said. "We have problems. We're trying to identify solutions."

The mapping project is titled Behavioral and Environmental Influence on Obesity: Rural Context and Race/Ethnicity and is being directed by Sharkey and researchers Barbara Sharf and Soujin Wang.

As part of the grant work, researchers also will be conducting clinical trials on the use of handheld computers, or PDAs, in tracking blood-sugar levels of diabetics. The clinical trials for the project -- which is called Employing Diabetes Self-Management Models to Reduce Health Disparities in Texas and is directed by researchers Sam Forjuoh, Jane Bolin and Ranjita Misra -- will be conducted at Scott & White Hospital and its regional clinics, McLeroy said.

Bolin, the director of the Southwest Rural Health Research Center and associate professor in the Health Science Center's Health Policy and Management Department, is working with the project. A registered nurse, Bolin said the trials would involve 300 people split equally into three groups -- 100 using PDAs, 100 enrolled in a diabetes education class and another 100 conducting standard self-monitoring.

The project, she said, is designed to compare the effectiveness of the PDAs in rural and urban populations as well as with various ethnic populations.

Sharkey added that the handheld computers ultimately could be used to send tailored messages to diabetics, such as reminding people to test their blood sugar or to exercise.

The third aspect of the grant -- the Student Wellness Assessment and Advocacy Project, directed by researchers Sharon McWhinney, Jay Arekere and Lisako McKyer -- focuses on prevention of childhood obesity and involves interventions.

McLeroy said the project would involve two schools: one in Waller County, where researchers already have been working, and a yet-to-be selected campus in Bryan.

The project is designed to look at student consumption patterns after school and on weekends. It will track students' body-mass index and look at where the kids buy food, McLeroy said. By the third year, interventions will be conducted with students who have a high risk for obesity, the researchers said.

Food options in Waller County -- not part of the Brazos Valley, but home to Prairie View A&M University, which is part of the project -- will be mapped early in 2008, Sharkey said, adding that the mapping project also will note areas conducive to exercise such as parks, walking trails and roads with sidewalks.

"There are two main factors in obesity: food consumption and physical activity," McLeroy said. "We need to understand better kids' consumption patterns, caloric intake, what they eat, how much they eat."

The researchers are looking for similar information from the mapping program. What behavioral and environmental factors influence the choices rural families make and, ultimately, the types of food they eat. Focus groups, in-depth interviews, discussion groups and even pantry inventories will be conducted with some families, Sharkey said.

"We're looking at, really, the context in which people live," Sharkey said.

• Holly Huffman's e-mail address is holly.huffman@theeagle.com.

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