Project FIT (Faith Influencing Transformation): The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Sunday Morning Health Screenings in African American Churches

Issues: African Americans continue to be disproportionately affected by health problems, including chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and limited access to health care. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has great potential to build on the strengths of the community, including the influence of Black churches, and enhance its capacity to address health disparities that burden the African American community.

Description: Project FIT is a church-based, pilot intervention designed to increase preventative behaviors for diabetes, heart disease and stroke, and access to health screenings and linkage to care services. Using a CBPR approach, pastors and church health liaisons contributed to project planning and participated in the coordination and promotion of health screenings. By developing collaborative partnerships, we successfully leveraged existing screening resources among community-based, private, university, and health agencies to facilitate health screenings during Sunday morning services at 6 African American churches. The screenings (cholesterol, blood pressure, A1C, BMI, waist-circumference) were held at one church per week for 6 consecutive Sundays, and an average of 60 participants per church took part in screening activities (N=356).

Lessons Learned: We will discuss the successful pre-scheduling of participants and the implementation of on-site screening procedures; the challenges of training volunteers and conducting body measurements while participants were dressed in their Sunday best; and the critical issues of maintaining low-cost supplies, systematically recording biometrics, and retaining volunteers.

Recommendations: Enhancing volunteer trainings and better utilization of university students are recommended. We will discuss other recommendations along with Project FIT next steps.