A Church-Based, Self-Management Intervention for Mexican-Americans with Diabetes

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): My long-term research objective is to become a nationally respected, independent community-based researcher, with a specific focus on using faith-based interventions to reduce diabetes disparities among Latinos. Diabetes is a very prevalent and morbid condition affecting Latinos, especially Mexican-Americans in the United States. Many church-based interventions have shown promise improving health outcomes among minority populations; but data on church-based interventions for Latino populations is scarce. Considering that the church is a center of Latino family and culture, interventions based in churches has promise to have great impact on this population. To our knowledge, no other studies have focused on designing church-based interventions for Latinos with diabetes. My research to date has already allowed me accomplish many of my short-term objectives in my path to becoming an independent academic researcher. With the support from the career development award, I will have the opportunity to refine my skills in community-based research methods and design interventions to tackle health disparities and foster change in Latino communities. I have the following short-term goals over the next five years that I will focus on in this proposal: 1) To gain additional research training and skills; 2) To assess the facilitators and barriers of local healthcare providers in linking to church-based diabetes, self-management interventions; 3) To design a church-based, culturally-appropriate patient intervention in partnership with faith-based institutions and local healthcare institutions to increase self- management of Latino patients with diabetes; 4) To pilot the intervention among Latinos with diabetes with the goal of improving their diabetes outcomes. Considering the growth of the Hispanic population and their disproportionate burden of chronic diseases, developing community based programming and linking these programs to the local healthcare system is crucial to decrease the health disparities among Latinos and has promise to have a high impact on diabetes outcomes on this community. With support from the K23 award, I can improve my skills in community based research and work towards my goal of becoming an independent academic researcher with an expertise in applying community based methods in decreasing Latino disparities in diabetes through faith-based interventions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: My long-term research objective is to become a nationally respected, independent community-based researcher, with a specific focus on using faith-based interventions to reduce diabetes disparities among Latinos. Considering that the church is a center of Latino family and culture, interventions based in churches have promise for great impact in this population. To our knowledge, no other studies have focused on designing church-based interventions for Latinos with diabetes. Considering the growth of the Hispanic population and their disproportionate burden of chronic diseases, developing programming to decrease the health disparities affecting this population is crucial. My research to date has already allowed me accomplish many of my short-term objectives in my path to becoming an independent academic researcher. With the support from the career development award, I will have the opportunity to refine my skills in community-based research methods and design interventions to tackle health disparities and foster change in Latino communities.