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“I Love Fruit But I Can’t Afford It”: Using Participatory Action Research to Develop Community-Based Initiatives to Mitigate Challenges to Chronic Disease Management in an African American Community Living in Public Housing

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Abstract

As chronic conditions are on the rise in the USA, management initiatives outside of the inpatient setting should be explored to reduce associated cost and access disparities. Chronic conditions disproportionately affect African American public housing residents due to the effects of historical marginalization on the manifestation of economic and social problems exacerbating health disparities and outcomes. Informed by participatory research action tenets, this study focused on identifying the challenges to management of chronic conditions and developing community-envisioned initiatives to address these challenges in a predominantly African American public housing community. Two focus groups were conducted with former and current public housing residents and were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Physical activity, the cost associated with healthy eating, and lack of information were noted as challenges to chronic disease management. Initiatives discussed were the formation of a walking partner’s program to promote physical activity, a shopper’s club to exchange coupons and learn how to prepare healthy meals, and a natural remedy’s book to share information intergenerationally about management tactics. Challenges identified existed predominantly on the individual and the system level, while the initiatives generated target engaging interpersonal and community relationships. These community-envisioned approaches should be explored to facilitate chronic disease management in public housing neighborhoods.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our community partners and participants in this study who generously shared their time and experiences and the University of Virginia Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation and the Learning Technologies Incubator for their support. Lucy Trieshmann, James Vahey, and Jillian Randolph provided assistance in the data collection and analysis.

Funding

This study was funded by the University of Virginia Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation and the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences Learning Technologies Incubator program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Courtney Rogers

  2. Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Joy Johnson

  3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Brianne Nueslein

  4. Department of Global Development Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    David Edmunds

  5. Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Hospital West Complex, PO Box 800717, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, USA

    Rupa S. Valdez

Authors
  1. Courtney Rogers
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  2. Joy Johnson
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  3. Brianne Nueslein
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  4. David Edmunds
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  5. Rupa S. Valdez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rupa S. Valdez.

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Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board at the University of Virginia. All participants provided informed consent before participating in the study.

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Rogers, C., Johnson, J., Nueslein, B. et al. “I Love Fruit But I Can’t Afford It”: Using Participatory Action Research to Develop Community-Based Initiatives to Mitigate Challenges to Chronic Disease Management in an African American Community Living in Public Housing. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 5, 1315–1327 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-018-0480-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-018-0480-3

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