community-based participatory research approaches for hypertension control and prevention in churches社区参与式研究方法在教堂高血压预防和控制.pdfVIP

SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research International Journal of Hypertension Volume 2011, Article ID 273120, 11 pages doi:10.4061/2011/273120 Review Article Community-Based Participatory Research Approaches for Hypertension Control and Prevention in Churches Sunita Dodani Center for Post Polio Rehabilitation, 2308 W, 127 Street, Leawood, KS 66209, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Sunita Dodani, soni.dodani@ Received 23 March 2011; Accepted 12 April 2011 Academic Editor: Samy I. McFarlane Copyright © 2011 Sunita Dodani. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Hypertension (HTN) is a highly prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular (CV), cerebrovascular, and renal diseases and dispropor- tionately affects African Americans (AAs). It has been shown that promoting the adoption of healthy lifestyles, ones that involve best practices of diet and exercise and abundant expert support, can, in a healthcare setting, reduce the incidence of hypertension in those who are at high risk. In this paper, we will examine whether similar programs are effective in the AA church-community- based participatory research settings, outside of the healthcare arena. If successful, these church-based approaches may be applied successfully to reduce the incidence and consequences of hypertension in large communities with potentially huge impact on public health. 1. Introduction The prevalence of HTN increased with age from 7% among those aged 18–39 years to 67% among those aged Hypertension (H