Community-Clinic Partnership to Promote Physical Activity in South Asian Women

The goal of this study is to pilot-test a culturally-salient physical activity intervention, using a randomized design, among under served, overweight/obese South Asian women at high risk for developing Diabetes.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Diabetes Mellitus; Physical Activity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Physical Activity

Detailed Description

Regular physical activity prevents type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Although physical inactivity and DM are common in the United States (US), the investigators data, and others,have shown that Asian Indian and Pakistani (South Asian) women are at even greater risk. South Asians (SA) are one of the fastest growing segments of the US population.Studies show that SA women have a markedly higher DM prevalence and are less physically active than women from other racial/ethnic groups.SA also have greater insulin resistance and visceral adiposity at a lower body mass index (BMI). A combination of regular, moderate intensity physical activity (PA) and resistance exercises has been shown to decrease visceral adiposity and improve insulin sensitivity, even without weight loss; thus, PA may be especially important for DM prevention among SA women. Despite being at increased risk, very few evidence-based DM prevention and PA interventions exist for SA women in the US.

This proposal builds on a successful academic-community partnership between Northwestern University and Metropolitan Asian Family Services, an organization that provides health care and social services to lower-income SA immigrant families. The partnership has focused on translating and implementing evidence-based lifestyle interventions for SA immigrants in real-world, clinic and community settings. The investigators formative research found that SA women, in particular, were not being reached by current efforts to promote PA. Importantly, however, the main reasons for the reduced effectiveness of traditional strategies for PA promotion related more to socio-cultural perceptions and beliefs than simply to language barriers. SA women reported little PA and had difficulty even defining exercise. Although 75% of women were sedentary and overweight, they did not recognize these as risk factors for DM. Lack of knowledge about benefits of PA, cultural and linguistic isolation, concerns about modesty, and rigid gender roles strongly influenced SA women's proclivity for physical inactivity. In this context, much more work will be needed to address SA women's physical inactivity than simple language translation of proven lifestyle interventions.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 68
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Illinois
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60611
      • Northwestern University-Feinberg School of Medicine
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60645
      • Metropolitan Asian Family Services

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Should meet all the 3 criteria below and meet the criteria for option 4 below or should meet the criteria for 5 as well as 6.

  1. Self-identified as South Asian
  2. Women
  3. Have children between the ages of 6 and 14 years. AND Meet either of the criteria below
  4. History of gestational diabetes during any of the pregnancies Or
  5. Body Mass Index between 25 and 35 kg/m2 And
  6. Family history of diabetes in a first degree relative.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Blood pressure of over 160/100 mm Hg
• History of diabetes
• Saying Yes to any question on the Exercise Assessment and Screening for You (EASY) exercise screening tool
• Currently pregnant or trying to get pregnant in the next year
• Planning to move out of Illinois in the next 6 months.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Other: Physical activity intervention; Participants will attend bi weekly exercise classes for a total of 16 weeks, led by certified, and trained instructors. The participant's children between the ages of 6 and 14 years will participate in the martial arts class with the mothers.	Behavioral: Physical Activity; Culturally tailored physical activity intervention for South Asian women and their children.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Physical Activity (Minutes/Week)	To test for differences in physical activity, we used mixed-effects models for pre- and post-intervention accelerometer data. In these models, the outcome was daily minutes of bout corrected moderate-vigourous physical activity. Time (pre/post-intervention) was treated as a binary variable in order to measure changes in physical activity. Models controlled for accelerometer wear time and weekend day.	Baseline and 4 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Northwestern University
• Collaborators: Metropolitan Asian Family Services
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Namratha Kandula, MD,MPH, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: September 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (Actual): August 1, 2015
• Study Completion (Actual): September 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 15, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 20, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): January 21, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 6, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 4, 2023
• Last Verified: April 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: STU00101433