257450 Effectiveness of Lay Health Worker Outreach on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity among Vietnamese Americans: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Monday, October 29, 2012

Bang H. Nguyen, DrPH , Research Department, Cancer Prevention Institute of California, Fremont, CA
Tung T. Nguyen, MD , Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Susan Stewart, PhD , Division of Biostatistics, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA
Stephen J. McPhee, MD , Vietnamese Community Health Promotion Project, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Khanh Quoc Le, MD, MPH , Research Department, Cancer Prevention Institute of California, Fremont, CA
Mai Tran, MPA , Research Department, Cancer Prevention Institute of California, Fremont, CA
Alene Pham , Research Department, Cencer Prevention Institute of California, Fremont, CA
Significance: Vietnamese-Americans are less likely to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables (F&V) and to be physically active than non-Hispanic whites. Purpose: Increase in intake of F&V and physical activities (PA) in Vietnamese-Americans. Methods: Using a clustered randomized controlled design, Lay Health Workers (LHWs) recruited participants aged 50-74 years for an intervention (n=155) or control arm (n=158). LHWs delivered 2 educational sessions about healthy eating and PA to the intervention arm participants; the control arm attended sessions about colorectal cancer screening. Effectiveness was measured using pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys. Outcomes were: 1) knowing the recommended number of daily servings of F&V, 2) knowing the recommended number of weekly minutes of PA, 3) eating ≥5 servings of F&V daily, and 4) being moderately/vigorously physically active for ≥150 minutes weekly. Results: Participants in the intervention group showed significantly greater increases than the control group (p<0.001) in the proportion who: knew the F&V recommendations (0.01 pre-intervention to 0.77 post-intervention [p<0.001] vs. 0.04 pre-intervention to 0.05 post-intervention [p=0.40]); knew the PA recommendations (0.02 pre-intervention to 0.77 post-intervention [p<0.001] vs. 0.01 pre-intervention to 0.02 post-intervention [p=0.14]); reported eating >5 servings of F&V the previous day (0.08 pre-intervention to 0.74 post-intervention [p<0.001] vs. 0.06 pre-intervention to 0.08 post-intervention [p=0.35]); and reported exercising >150 minutes weekly (0.41 pre-intervention to 0.71 post-intervention [p<0.001] vs. 0.51 pre-intervention to 0.57 post-intervention [p=0.07]). Discussion: LHW outreach is effective in increasing both knowledge and self-reported behaviors of healthy eating and PA among Vietnamese-Americans. These self-reports should be validated using objective measures.

Learning Areas:
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Diversity and culture
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1) Design an effective healthy eating and physical activity intervention. 2) Identify appropriate methods to evaluate healthy eating and physical activity intervention trials.

Keywords: Dietary Assessment, Physical Activity

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been the principal of multiple federally funded grants focusing on colorectal cancer screening, healthy eating, and physical activities. Among my scientific interests has been the development of interventions to increase colorectal cancer screening, healthy eating, and physical activities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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