An Adolescent-mediated intervention to improve diabetes prevention and management in Pacific Islander Families

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PROJECT SUMMARY The number of individuals diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in the United States (US) has more than doubled since 2000 to over 30 million, with an additional 84.1 million living with prediabetes. One minority group at particular risk is Pacific Islanders (PIs) who face many barriers (structural and cultural) to engaging in prevention or self-care. To address the critical need for diabetes prevention and treatment programs that target PIs, and building on the family-centered culture, our objective is to pilot test and evaluate a randomized controlled trial of an adolescent-mediated intervention designed to improve the glycemic control and self- care practices of a paired, adult family member with diagnosed diabetes. Building on our own prior work we have adapted an efficacious, primary care-based diabetes self-management program for delivery to adolescents. Specifically, we refined intervention content to focus on behaviors that contributed to glycemic control in prior iterations of the program, adapted the content to target adolescents as agents of change by adding communication and leadership skills, and incorporated experiential learning activities. We will examine the efficacy of the intervention with a pilot randomized controlled trial. We will randomize n=160 dyads (an adolescent (without diabetes) and a parent/grandparent diagnosed with diabetes who share a household). Adolescents will receive either the six-month diabetes intervention or a leadership and life skills-focused control curriculum in groups (n=10 participants in each group). Aside from planned research assessments we will have no contact with the adults in the dyad, who will proceed with their usual diabetes care. To test our hypothesis that adolescents receiving the intervention will be effective conduits of diabetes knowledge and will support their paired adult in the adoption of self-care strategies, our primary efficacy outcomes will be adult glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors (BMI, blood pressure, waist circumference). Secondarily, since we believe that exposure to the intervention may encourage positive behavior change in the adolescent themselves we will measure similar outcomes in the adolescents. Outcomes will be measured at baseline, at the end of the active intervention phase (six months post-randomization) and at 12-months post-randomization, to examine maintenance of intervention effects in the absence of contact. To determine potential for long-term sustainability and scale up, we will examine program acceptability, feasibility, fidelity, reach, and cost. Successful completion of our aims and proof of efficacy would produce an innovative, scalable program with high potential for replication in other similar, low-resource, family-centered, ethnic minority groups across the US who are the ideal beneficiaries of innovations to reduce chronic disease risk and eliminate health disparities.