Document Type
Article
Abstract
Heart disease is a leading cause of death for African Americans. A community-academic partnership cross-trained community health workers to engage African American adults in a 6-month heart health education and risk reduction intervention. We conducted a one-group feasibility study using a one group (pre-posttest) design. A total of 100 adults were recruited from 27 zip codes in an African American majority city through community-based organizations (46%), churches (36%), and home visits (12%). Ninety-six percent were African American; 55% were female, 39% were male, and 6% were transgender. Their mean age was 44.6 years (SD=15.9). Ninety-two percent had health insurance. Seventy-six percent of participants averaged blood pressure (BP) readings>130/80 mmHg. Eleven percent of participants had a 30% or higher probability of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years. Six-month follow-up was completed with 96% of participants. There were statistically significant increases in knowledge and in perception of personal risk for heart disease. However, slightly more participants (n=77, 80.2%) had BP>130/80 mmHg. The Community Advisory Group recommended expanding the intervention to 12 months and incorporating telehealth with home BP monitoring. Limited intervention duration did not meet longer term objectives such as better control of high BP and sharing risk reduction planning with primary care providers.
Disciplines
Cardiology | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Health Policy | Public Health Education and Promotion | Urban Studies | Urban Studies and Planning
Recommended Citation
Gleason-Comstock, J., Calhoun, C. B., Mozeb, G., Louis, C., Hill, A. B., Locke, B. J., ... & Xu, J. (2023). Recruitment, Retention, and Future Direction for a Heart Health Education and Risk Reduction Intervention Led by Community Health Workers in an African American Majority City. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 10, 1432–1440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01329-z
Included in
Cardiology Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Health Policy Commons, Public Health Education and Promotion Commons, Urban Studies Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons
Comments
© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and indicate if changes were made (no changes were made).