The goal of the University of New Mexico Prevention Reseach Center's core research, Healthy Places - Healthy People, is to implement The Community Guide recommendations for physical actvity.  This longitudinal study continues the adaptation and scaling up of a pragmatic model developed by the UNM PRC and participating communities during the 2009-2014 funding cycle, and disseminated and scaled up to 31 rural and frontier communities during 2014-2019.

Students, faculty, and staff from Diné College will have opportunities to participate in workshops, training, implementation and evaluation of the project.  PRC researchers, including 5 members of the Navajo Nation, will: provide training, workshops, and health education; identify resources; sponsor events; create maps and walking guides; and provide other technical assistance as identified by community members. The PRC will adapt and study strategies for implementation and sustainability using technical assistance, training, and shared guidance at each Chapter. We plan to use mixed methods to evaluate the successes of Healthy Places - Healthy People. 

Given the PRC's long history of working with the Navajo Nation and other tribal groups and following our strong guiding principles of community-engaged research, we anticipate success in adapting and scaling up the model we developed for the pragmatic implementatin of the Community Guide Recommendations for increasing physical activity. We expect that the results and subsequent lessons learned and identification of challenges and facilitators from Healthy Places - Healthy People will serve as a model for other Chapters (communities) in the Navajo Nation who wish to increase physical activity, improve quality of life, and prevent and control chronic disease in their communities.  The Navajo Nation Institutional Research Board had already requested we include the entire Navajo Nation in our plans for the future.