Outcomes of a Home-Based Walking Program for African-American Women

Abstract

Findings suggest the potential impact of workshop group support on adherence in African-American women.

Neighborhood Characteristics, Adherence to Walking, and Depressive Symptoms in Midlife African American Women

“…54 Overall, 69% of the ET group and 53% of the MT group participated in completing questionnaires at 24 weeks (total n ¼ 107, 62%). The most common reason for nonparticipation in the 24-week questionnaire assessments was health problems (34%) followed by work demands (22%).…”

“…Adherence was measured with heart rate monitors, a walking logbook, and an automated telephone response system. 54 Briefly, women wore a Polar Accurex Plus Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) (Warminster, PA) during each walking session. The monitor was programmed with the NEIGHBORHOOD, WALKING, AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS 1203…”

“…54 Using a quasi-experimental design, either the ET or MT was randomly assigned to one of two federally qualified Chicago community health centers serving communities with >25% of the population living below poverty level, >65% African American residents, and among the top 20% of 77 Chicago community areas with high heart disease mortality rates. 55 Random assignment of treatments to noncontiguous communities avoided the problem of women having acquaintances assigned to the opposite condition choosing to walk together and causing treatment contamination.…”

What are successful recruitment and retention strategies for underserved populations? Examining physical activity interventions in primary care and community settings

“…Common administrative retention strategies were to obtain multiple alternate contact numbers for participants [37,53,64], make multiple (10-20) contacts with participants during the study period [31,38,39,45,53,54,57], and maintain detailed databases and tracking registries for participants [29,37,59]. Providing financial or other incentives, transportation, or childcare were also commonly mentioned [29, 37-40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48-50, 54-59, 63, 64].…”

“…Intervention characteristics-Interventions most commonly were group-based classes; also included were promotion of walking [28][29][30][31][32][33][34], individual, homebased lifestyle physical activity (physical activity type not specified) [35,36], and mixed/multiple types of activity [33,[37][38][39]. The majority of interventions were either neighborhood-or community-based (n=11) or at community/cultural or recreation centers (n=9).…”