Johnson, Jacqueline

Introduction: Compared to Whites, African-Americans (AAs) have 82% lower odds of meeting ideal levels for five or more cardiovascular (CV) health components that comprise the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7, an evidenced-based metric of seven health promoting behaviors and biological factors that improve CV outcomes. Given expanding mobile technology use among AAs, mobile health (mHealth) interventions are promising avenues to promote CV health within this population. Hypothesis: An evidence-based, theory-informed, culturally relevant, community-based mHealth lifestyle intervention would improve CV health among AAs adults. Methods: Five predominately AA churches collaborated in a community-based participatory research approach to develop a 10-week CV health and wellness digital application-based program ( FAITH! App ). We enrolled AA adults [N=50, mean age 49.6 (SD 12.7), 70% women (35/50)] into a single group, 10-week intervention centered on the FAITH! App with adjunct in-person sessions. The FAITH! App included ten core video education modules from health professionals on CV health, interactive diet/physical activity self-monitoring and a sharing board. The primary outcome was change in individual CV health behaviors (body mass index, physical activity, diet, cigarette smoking) and biological factors (blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, fasting glucose) from baseline to post-intervention at 28 weeks. Results: Participants were overall high CV risk at baseline (hypertensive [40% (20/50)] with poor/intermediate physical activity [79% (37/47)] and diet [72% (36/50)]). At 28 weeks, there were substantial improvements in CV health factors (systolic and diastolic BPs), CV health behaviors (diet, physical activity) and psychological/psychosocial variables to promote behavior change ( Table 1 ). Conclusions: This study supports the benefits of a culturally relevant, community-based mHealth lifestyle intervention to promote CV health among AAs with high cardiometabolic risk.

Striking cardiovascular health disparities exist among African-Americans in Minnesota compared to Whites; however, community-based interventions to address cardiovascular disease risk are lacking. This study explored participant perceptions of a culturally tailored, cardiovascular disease prevention program developed using a community-based participatory research process. Research participation perceptions, program benefits, and program satisfaction/acceptability were analyzed using a mixed-methods approach. Overall, acceptability was high. Findings highlight the favorable inclusion of African-Americans (research perception), knowledge gained about healthy lifestyle practices (benefits), and quality of the curriculum/speakers (satisfaction). Community-based participatory research may be useful in fostering the acceptability of behavior change interventions among marginalized African-American communities.