UA News

A collaboration between the UA and the Hualapai tribe aims to reduce cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk factors in community members 10 years and older.

Live on the Web from the Hualapai Indian reservation in Peach Springs, Ariz., is a kid-run radio station that – in addition to music – promotes exercise and living a healthy lifestyle.

EPCH radio, also known as "The Peach," is made possible with a four-year, $765,000 grant and a collaboration between the University of Arizona and the Hualapai tribe.
 
"The purpose of this program is to develop a health-promotion effort that teaches and mentors adolescents to be ‘influencers' and promote healthy behaviors in their community," said Nicolette Teufel-Stone, an associate professor at the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.
 
The project is part of a study and effort to reduce cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes risk factors in community members 10 years and older.
 
"Right now the station offers mostly music and local interviews. Eventually, the youth will develop a radio drama about a fictitious local family working to build healthy habits followed with a call-in program," said Teufel-Shone, also the section chair of Family and Child Health in the Health Promotion Sciences division of the Zuckerman College of Public Health.
 
Hualapai (pronounced Wal-lah-pie) means "people of the tall pines." The reservation covers 1 million acres along 108 miles of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.

It's here in Northwestern Arizona where young people ages 10 to 25 are learning how to plan, present, and manage a radio station, with the help of a liaison who has professional broadcasting experience.

Teufel-Shone worked with Sandra Irwin, director of the Hualapai Tribal Health Department, to write the grant-winning proposal, "Leveraging Social Influence to Increase Physical Activity." 

The funding is from the National Institutes of Health and Indian Health Service through a Native American Research Centers for Health award.
 
EPCH is a member of the Kidstar Radio Network, a children's educational charity that is developing a network of Web radio stations within schools and youth organizations throughout the U.S.
 
To listen live to "The Peach," visit the EPCH website.