
Josefa MartinezYale University | YU · Section of General Internal Medicine
Josefa Martinez
PHD MHS CLC
About
35
Publications
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Introduction
I am an Instructor in the section of Internal Medicine. My interest is in maternal and child public health nutrition and my current work and previous experience focuses on the application of social and behavioral theory to interventions designed to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors. My dissertation examined the consequences of excess gestational weight gain and the predictors of exclusive breastfeeding in women enrolled in WIC.
Additional affiliations
August 2007 - August 2011
Publications
Publications (35)
Breastfeeding (BF) is vital for maternal and infant health, yet post-hospital discharge support remains a challenge. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides BF peer counseling prenatally and up to 1-year postpartum among low-income women in the United States. The Lactation Advice Through Texting Ca...
The dissemination of biomedical research data beyond academia remains limited. In response, funding agencies now regularly require that the projects they fund make research data openly available for reuse. This emerging open data movement aims to democratize data access, often guided by the FAIR data technical standards, requiring that data should...
Introduction
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) indicates generalised atherosclerotic disease but is often asymptomatic. The prevalence and potential risk factors of PAD were studied in ECHORN cohort study participants.
Methods
Representative samples of community-dwelling people ≥40 years of age residing in Barbados, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the...
Background
Limited evidence exists on the association between food insecurity (FI) and blood pressure control in the Caribbean despite the high burden of both. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between FI and hypertension prevalence, awareness, and control in the Eastern Caribbean.
Methods and Findings
We conducted a cross...
Introduction
Dyadic care, which is the concurrent provision of care for a birthing person and their infant, is an approach that may improve disparities in postnatal health outcomes, but no synthesis of existing dyadic care studies has been conducted. This scoping review seeks to identify and summarize: 1) dyadic care studies globally, in which the...
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for a higher proportion of mortality and morbidity in the Caribbean and US territories—majority-minority communities—than in the United States or Canada. Strategies to address this disparity include enhancing data collection efforts among racial/ethnic communities. The ECHORN Cohort Study (ECS), a regional ad...
Background
Globally, 1.3 billion people were considered food insecure as of 2022. In the Caribbean region, the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity was 71.3% as of 2020, the highest of all subregions in Latin America. Experienced based measurement scales, like the Latin American and Caribbean Food Security Scale, are efficient measureme...
Objective
Characterize family NICU visitation and examine associations with maternal health and social factors and infant health outcomes.
Study design
Retrospective cohort study of 167 infants born ≤32 weeks at two urban NICUs 01/2019-03/2020. Average nurse-documented family member visitation and associations of visitation with maternal and infan...
The identification of nocturnal nondipping blood pressure (< 10% drop in mean systolic blood pressure from awake to sleep periods), as captured by ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, is a valuable element of risk prediction for cardiovascular disease, independent of daytime or clinic blood pressure measurements. However, capturing measurements, i...
Background: Food insecurity (FI), defined as lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle, affects 40% of people across the Caribbean and is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes. Despite evidence that suggests an association between FI and sleep health and FI prevalence in the Caribbean, few studies have been...
Improving public health initiative requires an accurate anthropometric index that is better suited to a specific community. In this study, the anthropometric grouping index is proposed as a more efficient and discriminatory alternative to the popular BMI for the Eastern Caribbean population. A completely distribution-free cluster analysis was perfo...
Background: Food insecurity (FI), an economic or social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food, has emerged as a contributing factor in the development and poor management of chronic diseases. The Caribbean region faces serious challenges from FI that threaten the sustainability of food systems and health of populations. Increase...
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) breastfeeding peer counselling (BFPC) program supports optimal early life nutrition by providing evidenced‐based breastfeeding protection, promotion, and support. The Lactation Advice Through Texting Can Help (LATCH) study was a randomized controlled trial that tested...
Background:
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Caribbean region.
Objective:
This study explored the concept of a health network, relationships focused on health-related matters, and examined associations with CVD risk factors in the Eastern Caribbean.
Design:
The Eastern Caribbean Health Outcome...
Objective:
To describe the rationale and design of a prospective study of ambulatory blood pressure measurement (ABPM) combined with measurement of contextual factors to identify hypertensive phenotypes in a Caribbean population with high rates of HTN and cardiovascular disease.
Design:
Prospective, multi-center sub-study.
Setting:
Eastern Car...
Objective
Prior studies have suggested that weight misperception – underestimating one's actual weight – may be associated with reduced engagement in weight loss programs, decreasing the success of initiatives to address obesity and obesity‐related diseases. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors associated with weight misperception a...
Objective: Determine the impact of a 2-way text messaging intervention on time to contact between participants and their breastfeeding peer counselors (BFPCs) and on exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) status at 2 weeks and 3 months postpartum.
Design: Multisite, single-blind, randomized, controlled trial.
Setting: Special Supplemental Nutrition Progra...
Rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration among women who attend the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) are dramatically lower than nonparticipants. Innovative solutions are needed to improve breastfeeding rates in this population. The Lactation Advice through Texting Can Help (LATCH) study was one su...
Food and nutrition insecurity becomes increasingly worse in areas affected by armed conflict. Children affected by conflict, or in war-torn
settings, face a disproportionate burden of malnutrition and poor health outcomes. As noted by humanitarian response reviews, there is a need
for a stronger evidence-based response to humanitarian crises. To ac...
Rationale:
In the United States rates of exclusive breastfeeding duration remain exceedingly low. Exclusive breastfeeding is a complex learned behavior that is influenced by social cognitive, interpersonal, and structural factors. Interventions are needed that address factors at multiple levels of the social-ecological model. This study was design...
In the United States rates of exclusive breastfeeding duration remain exceedingly low. Exclusive breastfeeding is a complex learned behavior that is influenced by social cognitive, interpersonal, and structural level factors. Interventions are needed that address factors at multiple levels of the social‐ecological model. This study was designed to...
In the U.S. low income women lack breastfeeding education and support. LATCH was a multi‐site single‐blind randomized controlled trial designed to test the effectiveness of a two‐way text messaging intervention encouraging exclusive breastfeeding among low‐income women enrolled in breastfeeding peer counseling programs in four WIC clinics. LATCH co...
Rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration among women who attend the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) are dramatically lower than non‐participants. Innovative solutions are needed to improve breastfeeding rates in this population. The LATCH study was one such approach, designed to augment and reinfo...
Medically underserved US immigrants are at an increased risk for death from preventable or curable cancers due to economic, cultural, and/or linguistic barriers to medical care. The purpose of this study was to describe the evaluation of the pilot study of the Healthy Eating for Life (HE4L) English as a second language curriculum. The Reach, Effect...
Objective
Identify barriers and facilitators to improve prenatal fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake among Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)-eligible Latinas using the Health Action Process Approach framework.
Design
Qualitative data were collected via audiotaped in-depth interviews as part of a larger stud...
The Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is a key component of the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding. The primary aim of this narrative systematic review was to examine the impact of BFHI implementation on breastfeeding and child health outcomes worldwide and in the Unite...
Background:
Suboptimal infant feeding practices, including the failure to exclusively breastfeed, are modifiable risk factors that affect multiple maternal and child health outcomes. Women who are overweight or obese prenatally are more likely to fail to exclusively breastfeed. In the United States, Latinas represent a high-risk population with re...
Low health literacy contributes significantly to cancer health disparities disadvantaging minorities and the medically underserved. Immigrants to the United States constitute a particularly vulnerable subgroup of the medically underserved, and because many are non-native English speakers, they are pre-disposed to encounter language and literacy bar...
Two dominant approaches to constructing health messages are (1) framing messages to emphasize the benefits of adopting - or the costs of failing to adopt - a target behavior (i.e., message framing) and (2) tailoring messages to suit an individual's tendency to be concerned with either advancement and accomplishment or protection and responsibility...
We conducted a pre-post feasibility trial of Healthy Eating for Life, a theory-based, multimedia English as a second language curriculum that integrates content about healthy nutrition into an English language learning program to decrease cancer health disparities. Teachers in 20 English as a second language classrooms delivered Healthy Eating for...
The purpose of this study was to examine if messages tailored to an individual's regulatory focus (i.e. their tendency to focus on prevention or promotion) increased exercise intentions and behavior in a medically underserved sample. Adult English as a Second Language students (N = 58) were presented with tailored exercise messages. There was a sig...
To inform a community-based message framing intervention encouraging physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption among medically underserved adults.
Key informant interviews, focus groups, and a survey were conducted with limited-literacy Hispanics in the northeastern United States.
Barriers to healthy lifestyle behaviors exist at individ...
The authors reviewed the acculturation literature with the goal of identifying measures used to assess acculturation in Hispanic populations in the context of studies of health knowledge, attitudes, and behavior change. Twenty-six acculturation measures were identified and summarized. As the Hispanic population continues to grow in the United State...
This study describes the complex dynamics of the sexual, economic and social interactions between a group of feminized homosexual men and men who have sex with men and self-identify as heterosexual ('mostaceros'), in lower-income peripheral urban areas of Lima and Trujillo, Peru. The study examined sexual risk between these two groups of men, and t...