title: Cultural relevancy of a diabetes prevention nutrition program for African American women.
abstract: Diabetes among African American women is a pressing health concern, yet there are few evaluated culturally relevant prevention programs for this population. This article describes a case study of the Eat Well Live Well Nutrition Program, a community-based, culturally specific diabetes prevention nutrition program for African American women. The stages of change theory and principles from community organization guided the development of the program. Health education strategies, including participatory development and program delivery by peer educators, were applied to promote cultural relevance. Results indicated that overall participants (90%) believed the program to be culturally relevant and were very satisfied with the program (82%). Cultural relevancy was significantly associated with greater program satisfaction and changes in dietary patterns when controlling for the number of sessions attended. Conclusions suggest that participatory strategies can be effective in designing culturally specific prevention programs for African American women.
authors.affiliation: Washington University, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
authors.forename: James Herbert
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Wendy F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Auslander
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: de Groot
authors.forename: Adjoa Dionne
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Houston
authors.forename: Debra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Haire-Joshu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000208:ethnology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008923:Missouri; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires