Techquity by FAITH!

The goal of this clinical trial is to engage African-American churches via an established community-academic partnership (FAITH! Program) to build capacity to promote cardiovascular health and digital health equity in African-American faith communities. There are 3 study aims:

Aim 1: Co-design a culturally tailored digital health equity toolkit with community members

Aim 2: Train a network of Digital Health Advocates (DHAs) in digital health equity and cardiovascular health promotion

Aim 3: Test the impact of a DHA-enhanced mobile health intervention (the FAITH! App) on cardiovascular health and digital health readiness among participants

In Aim 1, participants will attend a series of focus groups to share their input on a digital health equity curriculum that will be condensed into a toolkit.

In Aim 2, DHAs will be trained using this toolkit as well as a community health advocacy curriculum to learn how to promote digital health readiness and cardiovascular health in their communities.

Finally, Aim 3 will be a randomized controlled trial where participants will use the FAITH! App to improve their cardiovascular health. Some participants will have the added support of a DHA, and the control group participants will use the app with no additional support to test whether the DHA support is associated with a more significant improvement in cardiovascular health.

This study addresses cardiovascular health and digital health disparities faced by African-Americans (AAs). We propose three aims to engage with the AA community and build capacity for a digital literacy and cardiovascular health promotion. Aim 1 will engage AA churches to co-design a culturally relevant digital health equity toolkit through an iterative focus group process. In aim 1, we will recruit 20 AAs to represent their churches and be trained as digital health advocates (DHAs) by completing digital health readiness education (using the toolkit developed in aim 1) and cardiovascular health promotion. This advocacy program will be integrated into an existing mobile health intervention, the FAITH! App, in Aim 3. The impact of the community-informed, mHealth intervention, enhanced with DHA support, on AA adults' cardiovascular health will be assessed in a cluster randomized controlled trial. 150 participants will be be randomized to utilize the FAITH! App alone or with the support of the DHA at their church. Cardiovascular health will be assessed at baseline, approximately 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months post-randomization using the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 metric for cardiovascular health.

Eligibility Criteria:
Aim 1- Inclusion Criteria: African/American race/ethnicity, age ≥ 18 years, basic Internet navigation skills, active email address

Aim 2- Inclusion Criteria: African/American race/ethnicity, age ≥ 18 years, ownership of smartphone (supporting iOS or Android systems), moderate to high digital health literacy (by eHealth literacy scale \[eHEALS\], score ≥26)

Aim 3- Inclusion Criteria: African/American race/ethnicity, age ≥ 18 years, ownership of smartphone (supporting iOS or Android systems), low digital health literacy (by eHEALS, score ≤26), basic Internet navigation skills, at least weekly Internet access, active email address, fruit/vegetable intake ≤5 servings/day, no regular physical activity, able to engage in moderate physical activity and willingness to participate in all aspects of the study.

Exclusion Criteria: Unable to walk up ≥2 flights of stairs or walk ≥1 city block without assistance or stopping, pregnant (at time of study enrollment), visual/hearing impairment or mental disability that would preclude independent app use.