261543 Incorporating community partners and storytelling in community intervention research to promote social support and problem-solving skills for engagement in physical activity

Monday, October 29, 2012

Cristina Bernal, MPH , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Deana Caver, MPH , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Detroit, MI
Cindy Gamboa , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Sharon Sand, MPP , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Amy J. Schulz, PhD , School of Public Health, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Melissa A. Valerio, PhD, MPH , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Alana Wooley, MSc , Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI
Conja Wright , Detroit Public Library, Redford Branch Library, Detroit, MI
Background. A community partner will describe a walking group intervention to promote cardiovascular health through physical activity in predominantly African American and Latino communities. As part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) process, we engaged a local storyteller to incorporate storytelling into enhanced maintenance interventions for comparative effectiveness research.

Methods. We describe the walking groups, which are facilitated by Community Health Promoters (CHPs), members of the local community, and provide support for walkers. The enhanced maintenance interventions involve storytelling in the delivery of social support or problem-solving skill themes during four walking group sessions. CHPs integrate and reinforce core messages throughout the 32-week intervention.

Results. We describe the participatory process used to identify themes for the enhanced maintenance interventions, the development of stories that illustrate those themes, the culturally-adapted stories introduced and the active engagement of participants in the storytelling process. Assumptions about community, culture, agency, and structure that underlie the engagement of community partners and the use of storytelling as a component of individual and community change processes will be described. We present preliminary results from CHPs' observations with walking groups to understand ways participants engaged with themes and the storytelling process.

Conclusions. We discuss the challenges and opportunities for incorporating storytelling as a way to facilitate participants in telling their own story as a manifestation of power inherent in their own physical and mental health throughout the life course. Finally, we discuss how engaging community partners in designing comparative effectiveness interventions can maintain the participatory process of CBPR.

Learning Areas:
Diversity and culture
Public health or related education
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the three walking group interventions, led by community health promoters and designed through a community planning process and designed to promote engagement in physical activity and maintenance of participation in the walking group intervention. 2. Assess the effectiveness of the storytelling process to promote social support and problem-solving skills, key intervention themes, in an intervention to support physical activity among walking group participants.

Keywords: Community Health Promoters, Physical Activity

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a doctoral student in Health Behavior and Health Education involved in the Comparative Effectiveness Research project associated with this walking group intervention.
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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