The purpose of this project is to design, implement and evaluate a Type II Diabetes Prevention Program for the Avondale Medical Center, a primary care facility treating predominately low-income, Afro-Americans living in the Avondale suburb (mostly South Avondale) of Cincinnati, Ohio. The program is needed because low-income Afro-Americans run four times the risk of developing Type II diabetes as do non-minorities and twice the risk of other minority groups such as Hispanics; in addition, the complications associated with the development of the disease have been found to be far more severe in African American groups than in either white groups or other minority groups.
Approximately 100 men and women (50 males and 50 females) will be randomly assigned to either the prevention program or to a waiting list control group. Program participants will receive a series of group lectures (using lots of audio-visual resources and other demonstration materials) and participate in discussion groups aimed at improving their dietary intake, motivating them to begin participating in regular exercise, changing their false health beliefs, and educating them about nutrition as it relates to the development of Type II Diabetes. Measures of the degree to which subjects' participate in regular exercise, their degree of false health beliefs, their dietary intake, and their degree of knowledge about nutrition will be collected both before and after the program. Program effectiveness will be assessed by comparing participants' pretest and posttest scores and by comparing the control and program participants' groups.
The proposed project focuses on developing a type II diabetes prevention program for Avondale Medical Center, a primary care facility serving a primarily low-income African-American community. A good deal of the need for the program centers around the seriousness of the condition; so that the condition at which the project aims may be ...