Lessons learned from a collaborative community-based diabetes education program

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes among adults in the United States has increased dramatically since the 1990's and the trend continues. African Americans suffer disproportionately from type 2 diabetes and its complications. Program/purpose: Balanced Living with Diabetes (BLD) is a community-based type 2 diabetes education program developed and coordinated by Virginia Cooperative Extension. A community-based participatory research approach is used to tailor, deliver and evaluate the program in partnership with the health ministry of the Baptist General Convention of Virginia, a statewide association of African American churches, targeting medically underserved areas of Virginia. Varying readiness and capacity exist among regional/local partners for delivering lifestyle-related chronic disease programs through academic/community partnerships. Semi-structured interviews with state, regional and local project partners collected qualitative data regarding facilitators and barriers for implementing BLD and conducting collaborative community-based research. Individual characteristics, church support for health ministry, communication, acknowledgement among partners, infrastructure, resources and other local factors influence readiness and capacity of church-based health ministries to address lifestyle-related chronic disease. These “lessons learned” can be used to improve individual, organizational and community readiness and capacity to actively engage in all phases of health promotion projects. Methods used to assess community and organizational readiness and capacity, such as the Community Based Participatory Research Partnership Readiness Model, could provide valuable insight and solutions related to individual church and overall church health ministry readiness and capacity to implement, evaluate and disseminate health education programs to address chronic disease.