The influence of health behavior clusters on dietary change.
BACKGROUND
The goal of this study was to identify cancer preventive health behavior clusters and to determine if clusters responded differently to a year-long intervention to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.


METHODS
The North Carolina Strategies for Improving Diet, Exercise, and Screening (NC STRIDES) is a health communications intervention (n = 595) among colorectal cancer survivors and a comparison population. Cluster analysis was used to identify nonoverlapping groups based on fruit and vegetable intake (servings/day), physical activity (minutes/day), multivitamin use (yes/no), and body mass index (kg/m2). Logistic regression was performed to assess positive change in fruit and vegetable servings, using the healthiest cluster as the reference group.


RESULTS
Five clusters were formed; they differed significantly by health behaviors and demographics. Clusters 1 and 2 (those following the "Healthy Choices" and "Eating Well" patterns) were eating more than 5 A Day before the intervention (8.6 and 6.9 servings/day), and did not show any increase. Cluster 3 ("Physically Active") reported an increase of 1.3 servings/day to reach 5.4 servings/day, and Clusters 4 and 5 ("Average Americans" and "Most Challenged") improved one serving/day for final intakes of 5.2 and 5.0 servings/day.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings illustrate some differences in magnitude of response to a fruit and vegetable intervention based on health behavior profiles. Creating clusters or other categories from baseline health behaviors may help to further improve targeting and/or tailoring in health promotion interventions.
Reedy
Jill
J
Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892-7344, USA. reedyj@mail.nih.gov
Haines
Pamela S
PS
Campbell
Marci Kramish
MK
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D004032:Diet; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D009657:North Carolina; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D012016:Reference Values; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017741:Survivors; D014815:Vitamins / Q000627:therapeutic use
D014815:Vitamins