West Philadelphia Consortium to Address Disparities - Phase 3

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We established an academic-community partnership and used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop, implement and evaluate a behavioral intervention to increase fruit and vegetable intake and physical activity. Our novel interventions integrated disease (cancer and cardiovascular), behavioral (diet, physical activity), and psychological (risk comprehension, self-efficacy) foci Results from our randomized trial comparing the effects of integrated versus disease-specific risk education show that both approaches have considerable reach among community residents and beneficial effects on behavioral outcomes. Several important questions remain: Which strategies are most effective for disseminating interventions into real-world settings and what type of support is most likely to lead to implementation of these strategies? Our preliminary research suggests that community residents are interested in receiving the results of research conducted to improve health behaviors, but empirical data are not available on uptake of this type of community education strategy and its effects on beliefs about health promotion and disease prevention research and lifestyle behaviors. Therefore, in response to RFA number and title, we propose to evaluate the effects of alternate strategies for disseminating and implementing our risk education protocols among community-based organizations and residents as part of the following specific aims: 1) To determine if African American residents in the Philadelphia metropolitan area who receive targeted community-based dissemination strategies about research results report a) improved individual knowledge and/or adoption of positive health behaviors and b) increased levels of trust and/or willingness to participate in research. 2) To evaluate which of two implementation strategies (e.g., informational workshops alone or informational workshops accompanied by ongoing technical assistance) is more effective for increasing adoption of risk education programs among community-based organizations in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.