141st APHA Annual Meeting

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290100
Diet related outcome expectation, attitude and perceived self-efficacy among seniors residing in public housing developments in NYC: The well seasoned program

Wednesday, November 6, 2013 : 12:54 PM - 1:06 PM

Veronica Uzoebo, Dr , Research, Evaluation & Monitoring, City Harvest, Inc, New York City, New York, NY
Maggie Meehan, MS , City Harvest, Inc, NYC, NYC, NY
Basil Reyes, MPH , City Harvest, Inc, New York, NY
Jennifer McLean , City Harvest, Inc., NYC, NY
Studies have shown that the decisions individuals make about food intake are linked to several chronic diseases. When individuals believe they can successfully engage in behaviors to improve their diet, or believe there are benefits from doing so, they are more likely to engage in the behaviors. Well Seasoned (WS), is an eight-session health promotion program, targeting seniors residing in public housing developments. WS is designed to improve attitudes and behaviors among persons 60+years, to eat healthy, stretch their food budget, and engage in physical activities, to help them live healthy, independently and age in place.

Participants (n=184) completed pre/post intervention questionnaire, assessing measures such as behavior intention, outcome expectation, self-efficacy, and shopping and food consumption habits.

Participants mean age was 70.7years); female (77%); African Americans (34.9%), Hispanic (43.6%) and white (10.1%). At post, 75.1%) plan to cook healthy “…during the week” (p=.000); and among those said healthy foods taste good, pre vs. post intervention (M=1.73, SD= .73; M=1.9, SD .81; p=.000). Seniors who say they can find healthy recipes to cook (M=1.89, SD = .63) were also likely to say they can cook healthy every day (M=1.76, SD.69) (p=.002). WS had positive impact on perceived self-efficacy about using labels to make food consumption decisions (p =.007) and using unit prices to shop (p=.008).

The findings suggest that the model improve self-efficacy and behavior intentions to engage in healthy eating among seniors. Research is needed to examine its impact among sub-groups of seniors.

Learning Areas:
Chronic disease management and prevention
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Assess the impact of a program to improve, self- efficacy healthful decision making and overall quality of among seniors in public housing. Describe attitudes to food intake, healthful shopping and physical activity among persons on a fixed income. Describe lessons learned from implementing nutrition education intervention program for older adults on a fixed income.

Keywords: Aging, Health Promotion

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an experienced public health evaluator, with established history of research and presentations. I have presented at APHA in the past.
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.

Back to: 5142.0: Nutrition and Aging