Impact of Faith-Based Interventions to Reduce Risk Factors that Lead to Increased Risk for Cardiovascular Disease among African Americans in the American South
Creators: name: Spitzer, Rebecca
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been the leading cause of death in the United States for more than 50 years, currently responsible for 48% of all deaths, and as a chronic disease, is among the most prevalent and preventable health problems facing our nation today. CVD can be effectively prevented through addressing behavioral risk factors like poor diet, physical inactivity, or obesity. The American South has been plagued with higher rates of CVD than other regions, and African Americans have the highest rates of CVD compared to other racial/ethnic groups. This paper describes the ability of faith-based interventions to impact and reduce CVD risk factors among African Americans living in the South. Methods: Electronic databases (PubMed and the Cochrane Library) were searched for evaluation studies of faith-based interventions designed to address and reduce CVD risk factors among African Americans living in the American South. Within PubMed, the search algorithm was created to include the following elements: southern geographic location, CVD and its risk factors, religious/church affiliation, and the African American population. Within the Cochrane Library, the search term "church" was used to obtain relevant studies. Additional studies were located through reference from articles obtained through the primary database search. The following information was extracted from each article included in the review: the type of intervention, the geographic location(s) where it took place, the study design, the study population size and composition, the intervention components, the outcome(s) of interest, the quantifiable results, and the resulting conclusions. Results: The initial search yielded 142 articles from PubMed and 152 articles from the Cochrane Library. After all articles were reviewed and any duplicates were ruled out, a total of 11 articles were selected for inclusion in the review. The studies included in this review proved to be very effective in that 3 of the 4 studies targeting weight loss, 7 of the 8 studies targeting increased physical activity, and 6 of the 7 studies targeting increased fruit and vegetable consumption were able to produce statistically significant results. Conclusions: The African American church is shown to be rich in social capital and acts as a great support system for its members of all ages. It serves as a potentially effective and instrumental setting to provide health programming to parishioners because of the shared culture and religious beliefs along with the infrastructure to help allow for sustainability. With cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death in the United States and a particularly high prevalence in the South, and African Americans as the racial population with the highest prevalence, the implementation of faith-based interventions to target cardiovascular disease in African Americans in the South is both timely and fitting.