Health Outreach and the AA Church: Preventing Chronic illness among Congregants

Despite many efforts to address chronic conditions within the African American (AA) population, the rates of disease, disability and death, still remain disproportionate in AAs compared to other racial/ethnic groups. While churches have the potential to play an important role in impacting health among AAs, it is unclear what attributes are necessary for health promotion. The purpose of this study is to create a model to predict the readiness of the African American church to engage in health promotion programming by examining the relationship between church infrastructure (physical structure, personnel, funding, personnel, and social/cultural support) and readiness to engage in health promotion programming. To accomplish this goal, thirty-six key informant interviews will be conducted with pastors, program facilitators and congregants from a sample of 12 churches to identify key infrastructure attributes necessary for health programming. Data collected from interviews will be used to develop a questionnaire to be administered within 120 churches to identify the presence or absence of infrastructure and church readiness. Readiness will be assessed through a composite score of the presence of infrastructure and frequency of health activities and then scaled to the Community Readiness Model stages of readiness. Data analysis will consist of concept mapping of qualitative data and factor analysis along with principle component analysis for quantitative analysis. This project will identify critical elements in church infrastructure necessary for effective health promotion which could have implications for the development of training models to increase the capacity of churches to improve health in African American communities.