NYU Health Promotion and Prevention Research Center: A CBPR approach to promoting diabetes prevention in the South Asian and Korean communities of New York City

Recent data in New York City show Asian Americans to have the highest prevalence of impaired glucose metabolism (diabetes 16.1%, impaired fasting glucose 32.4%) compared to White non-Hispanics (10.7% and 21.2%, respectively). Results of regional studies show the prevalence of diabetes to be as high as 17.4% in South Asians and 18.1% in Koreans.

In 2009, the NYU School of Medicine, in collaboration with the Schools of Nursing, Public Service, Education, and a coalition of community-based organizations, received funding from the CDC to establish a Prevention Research Center (PRC). The mission of the NYU PRC is to build and enhance community capacity and leadership to reduce cardiovascular disease in diverse populations, while its core research project will develop, implement, and test an evidence-based community health worker (CHW) program for diabetes prevention among the South Asian and Korean communities of NYC.

Efforts to address health disparities require multidisciplinary and multi-level approaches, with a close partnership between the campus and community. The PRC therefore uses a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to ensure that communities are actively and equally engaged in the PRC and throughout the research process, and that research and interventions are community driven and culturally appropriate. The PRECEDE-PROCEED intervention planning model is also used, which calls for the active participation of the intended audience in developing and implementing the intervention. Activities are carried out using a multi-theoretical framework based on the socio-ecological model, and the RE-AIM framework will be used to assess the impact and translatability of the intervention.