DASH-ing to Heart Health: Supporting Low-Income African American Women with an Interactive "Meals that Heal" Resource Book

Although the DASH diet [Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension] has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of hypertension and other cardiovascular disease risk factors, there is a lack of available health information on how to follow a feasible DASH diet for low-income African American women who may be at the most risk for hypertension because of poor social determinants of health. The long-term goal of this project is to increase the accessibility and acceptability of culturally- and economically-responsive DASH dietary modifications for low- income African American women. The overall goal of this project is to create a useful and usable interactive resource book that increases awareness/knowledge of hypertension and improves ease of following a DASH diet by providing culturally relevant and low-cost DASH recipes that low-income African American women can utilize when making heart healthy food choices. The specific aims are to: (1) evaluate how currently available DASH recipes perform in terms of cultural relevance and economic feasibility; (2) describe what factors influence adherence to the DASH diet; and (3) determine how effective an interactive resource book is at increasing knowledge and adherence to the DASH diet. The first aim will use an integrative review to synthesize related literature. The second aim will explore barriers and facilitators to DASH adherence including dietary preferences and food budgetary decision making. The third aim will evaluate the accessibility and acceptability of an interactive health information resource designed to increase DASH knowledge and adherence. This proposed project is innovative because it focuses on adherence to DASH diet and low-income African American women, a group that is disproportionately impacted by hypertension. The proposed research is significant because findings will increase the availability of accessible and usable evidence-based health information for health disparity populations. This knowledge has the potential to increase the adherence to the DASH diet and overall effectiveness of existing interventions, which is critical to reducing hypertension disparities.