Cancer prevention among working class, multiethnic adults: results of the healthy directions-health centers study.
OBJECTIVE
We analyzed outcomes from a study that examined social-contextual factors in cancer prevention interventions for working class, multiethnic populations.


METHODS
Ten community health centers were randomized to intervention or to control. Patients who resided in low-income, multiethnic neighborhoods were eligible; the intervention targeted fruit and vegetable consumption, red meat consumption, multivitamin intake, and physical activity. Outcomes were measured at 8 months.


RESULTS
The intervention led to significant increases in fruit and vegetable consumption and multivitamin intake and reductions in red meat consumption; no change was found in physical activity levels. The intervention effect was not changed when contextual variables that may function as confounders or effect modifiers (e.g., gender, education, race/ethnicity, respondent and parents' country of birth, and poverty status) were included in the analyses.


CONCLUSIONS
The intervention led to significant improvements in health behaviors among a working class, multiethnic population, regardless of race/ ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Interventions that respond to the social context of working class individuals across racial/ethnic categories hold promise for improving cancer-related risk behaviors.
Emmons
Karen M
KM
Harvard School of Public Health and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Center for Community-Based Research, 44 Binney St, Boston, MA 02115, USA. karen_m_emmons@dfci.harvard.edu
Stoddard
Ann M
AM
Fletcher
Robert
R
Gutheil
Caitlin
C
Suarez
Elizabeth Gonzalez
EG
Lobb
Rebecca
R
Weeks
Jane
J
Bigby
Judy Anne
JA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003151:Community Health Centers; D004032:Diet; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012923:Social Class