Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #110813

Barbara J. Speck, PhD, RN¹, Vicki Hines-Martin, PhD, RN¹, Barbara A. Stetson, PhD², and Stephen W. Looney, PhD³. (1) School of Nursing, University of Louisville, 555 South Floyd Street, Louisville, KY 40202, 502-852-8513, bjspec01@louisville.edu, (2) Psychology, Arts & Sciences, 317 Life Sciences Building, Belknap Campus, Louisville, KY 40292, (3) School of Public Health, Lousiania State University, 1600 Canal Street, Suite 1100, New Orleans, LA 70112

Purpose: To reduce community environmental barriers to physical activity in medically underserved women.

Design: Mixed methodology 1) quantitative (quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, cohort design in which no treatment partitioning is possible) and qualitative (focus groups).

Setting: Church sponsored community center with nurse-managed clinic located in a low-income neighborhood. The comparison group was recruited first followed by the intervention group to control for setting.

Sample: 104 female subjects (comparison group, n=53; intervention group, n=51) between the ages of 18 and 63, who were residents of a neighborhood served by the community center. The only significant difference between groups was age (t = 2.60, d.f.= 107, p = 0.011).

Variables: Independent variables included demographic, psychosocial, physical activity, physiologic (cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure), and anthropometric measures. Outcome measures included change in physiologic and anthropometric measures, level of physical activity, and attendance at physical activity events.

Intervention: The intervention was guided by the Health Promotion Model and a community-as-partner model. The 6 month intervention was two-fold: 1) provide culturally appropriate educational activities to increase women's comfort level at the community center, and 2) provide multiple culturally appropriate physical activity opportunities utilizing the facilities at the community center and neighborhoods.

Procedure: The University Institutional Review Board approved the study. Subjects were recruited for the comparison group (6 months) followed by the intervention group (6 months). Independent variables were measured at pretest and posttest in both groups.

Findings: This presentation will report the initial findings related to the hypotheses (effectiveness of the intervention): the intervention group will have higher levels of physical activity, greater improvement in disease risk factors (decreased blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, waist circumference, body fat), and increased perceptions of self-efficacy, physical activity benefits, and social support than the comparison group at posttest (six months).

Learning Objectives: