Cultural Tailoring for African Americans: The Eat for Life Study
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Start Date
26-6-2008 4:45 PM
End Date
26-6-2008 5:45 PM
Keywords:
Health Disparate, Minority and Vulnerable Populations, Healthcare Disparities, Black or African American, Race Factors, Racism
Description
Many targeted health interventions have been developed and tested with African American (AA) populations; however, AAs are a highly heterogeneous group. One characteristic that varies across AAs is Ethnic Identity (EI). Despite the recognition that AAs are heterogeneous with regard to EI, little research has been conducted on how to incorporate EI into the design of health messages and programs. This talk will present a randomized trial that tested whether tailoring a print-based fruit and vegetable (F & V) intervention based on individual EI would enhance program impact beyond that of social cognitive tailoring alone. African American adults were recruited from two integrated healthcare delivery systems, one based in the Detroit Metro area and the other in the Atlanta Metro area, and then randomized to receive three newsletters focused on F & V behavior change over three months. One set of newsletters was tailored only on demographic, behavioral, and social cognitive variables (control condition) whereas the other (experimental condition) was also tailored on EI. The primary outcome for the study was F & V intake, which was assessed at baseline and three months later using the composite of two brief self-report frequency measures. A total of 560 eligible participants were enrolled, of which 468 provided complete 3- month follow-up data. The experimental group increased their daily mean F & V intake by 1.1 servings compared to .8 servings in the control group (p = .13). Several variables were found to interact with intervention group. Experimental group participants classified as Afrocentric showed a 1.4 increase in F & V servings per day compared to a -43 servings per day increase among Afrocentric controls (p < .05). And, among participants characterized as both Afrocentric and Cultural Mistrust, F & V increased 1.3 servings in the experimental group compared to a decrease of .7 servings in the control group (p = .07). This study confirms that African Americans are a highly diverse population and that tailoring dietary messages on ethnic identity may improve intervention impact for some African American subgroups.
Recommended Citation
Resnicow, Kenneth Ph.D, "Cultural Tailoring for African Americans: The Eat for Life Study" (2008). Disparities in Health in America Workshop: Celebrating Scholar Entrepreneurs Working Towards Social Justice. 4.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/dhaw/2008/communicationsanddisparities/4
Short Bio and Abstract
Cultural Tailoring for African Americans: The Eat for Life Study
Many targeted health interventions have been developed and tested with African American (AA) populations; however, AAs are a highly heterogeneous group. One characteristic that varies across AAs is Ethnic Identity (EI). Despite the recognition that AAs are heterogeneous with regard to EI, little research has been conducted on how to incorporate EI into the design of health messages and programs. This talk will present a randomized trial that tested whether tailoring a print-based fruit and vegetable (F & V) intervention based on individual EI would enhance program impact beyond that of social cognitive tailoring alone. African American adults were recruited from two integrated healthcare delivery systems, one based in the Detroit Metro area and the other in the Atlanta Metro area, and then randomized to receive three newsletters focused on F & V behavior change over three months. One set of newsletters was tailored only on demographic, behavioral, and social cognitive variables (control condition) whereas the other (experimental condition) was also tailored on EI. The primary outcome for the study was F & V intake, which was assessed at baseline and three months later using the composite of two brief self-report frequency measures. A total of 560 eligible participants were enrolled, of which 468 provided complete 3- month follow-up data. The experimental group increased their daily mean F & V intake by 1.1 servings compared to .8 servings in the control group (p = .13). Several variables were found to interact with intervention group. Experimental group participants classified as Afrocentric showed a 1.4 increase in F & V servings per day compared to a -43 servings per day increase among Afrocentric controls (p < .05). And, among participants characterized as both Afrocentric and Cultural Mistrust, F & V increased 1.3 servings in the experimental group compared to a decrease of .7 servings in the control group (p = .07). This study confirms that African Americans are a highly diverse population and that tailoring dietary messages on ethnic identity may improve intervention impact for some African American subgroups.
