Armenia M. Williams, DPA, RNC, FNP¹, Judith L. Wold, PhD, RN², Sherry Gaines, PhD, RN², Janie M. Leary, BSW², Barbara L. Gibson, RN, MSN, FNP³, and Rhonda R. Landrum, RD/LD, CLC⁴. (1) Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing, Georgia State University, 6235 Rockland Road, Lithonia, GA 30038, 404-651-4274, awilliam@gsu.edu, (2) Childcare Advantage Network, School of Nursing, Georgia State University, P. O. Box 4019, Atlanta, GA 30302-4019, (3) Nursing Services, Northwest Georgia Health District 1-1, 1305 Redmond Circle, Bldg. 614, Rome, GA 30165, (4) Nutrition Services, Northwest Georgia Health District 1-1, 1305 Redmond Circle, Bldg. 614, Rome, GA 30165

Rural and African-American women are two ethnic groups who exhibit greater propensity to overweight and obesity than other ethnic groups. Culture and lifestyle are strongly linked to this finding. Physical activity and food intake are usually the focus of strategies to reduce weight and risk for the chronic diseases that are linked to higher body weight. However, these two groups of women present challenges to health professionals who design health promotion and disease prevention programs. Strong ties to kinship networks and community values must be acknowledged and addressed to be successful with these two groups. An interdisciplinary approach is presented here. Nursing school faculty members who have long experience working with these two groups partnered with public health nurses and public health nutritionists to reach women from these two ethnic groups. Child care workers were the focus of a program designed to increase physical activity levels and provide behavior-based nutrition education. This presentation describes the pilot testing of the program that will focus on child care workers in a rural area of southern Appalachia. Successes and failures will be presented to demonstrate that rural and African-American women need programs "designed for them" that promote behavior change and increase access to preventive care.

Learning Objectives: Participants who attend this session should be able to

• Describe cultural issues related to overweight/obesity in rural and African-American groups of women,
• Discuss realistic strategies for over-coming barriers to health promotion in overweight/obese rural and African-American women, 3)Examine community based barriers to physical activity in rural and Arfican-American women, 4)Describe interdisciplinary strategies for improved health in rural and African-American women.

Keywords: Access to Health Care, Women's Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.