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Tailoring interventions for increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among urban and rural African American audiences: Applying market decision-analysis to the intervention design processes
Method:A commercial marketing decision analysis technique was employed to test five health communication intervention attributes derived from socioecologically grounded formative research. These attributes included: suggested behavior, action demonstrated, message source, behavioral benefit touted, and the situation illustrated. Within each attribute, 4-5 specific intervention elements were tested for preference and motivation potential using 150 survey responses from residents of each study community (N=300 in total).
Results and Implications: Our findings show that rural and urban community residents were similar across several intervention preferences. In particular, two factors associated with the culture and structure of the study communities were cited by respondents as the most important intervention design considerations regardless of a respondents’ neighborhood of residence: the health communication message source (mean importance =24.87) and the situation presented in the communication (mean importance=20.75). Two important distinctions, however, arose between respondent groups, which were punctuated by the importance of family and church leaders in the rural setting. This presentation will discuss the implications of these findings for intervention and message tailoring in rural and urban African American cultures.
Learning Areas:
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programsLearning Objectives:
Identify barriers to dietary change (specifically, increased fruit and vegetable consumption) in African American communities, particularly as it pertains to issues of community culture and structure.
Describe the differences in attitudes, preferences, and barriers toward increased fruit and vegetable consumption across urban and rural Black communities.
Discuss methods for incorporating innovative intervention design methodologies and outcomes in programs designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
Keyword(s): Communication, African American
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have a Ph.D. in Health Promotion and Behavior from the University of Georgia's College of Public Health. I am an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Louisville where I teach health communication intervention design and campaign planning. I have been the Principal Investigator of multiple federally funded grants focusing on increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
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.