My program of research is focused on the impact of daily life events on young children's development, specifically examining health compromising behaviors as influenced by media and culture/ethnicity. From the perspective of self-regulation and motivation my work has examined televisions influence on young Hispanic, Anglo, Chinese and Thai families. Current projects are delineating the role of maternal fatigue on sedentary behavior in mother-child dyads, children's use of media as a coping strategy, fathers beliefs and practices regarding media, interactive video gaming for physical activity motivation in high risk pediatric populations, and conjoint mobile health technology in physical activity intervention approaches for children and parents.

Two recently funded studies are related to innovation and new technology. This work specifically targets mobile phone (mHealth) strategies to help reduce health disparities and builds on the idea of using the visual capacity of mobile phones to more effectively reach a low health literacy population at risk for physical inactivity. Our multidisciplinary team is working with Hispanic adults, clinicians and promotoras to develop and test visual representations on the mobile phone – such as pictograms, animation and video – that support health care providers’ recommendations for lifestyle changes.