Cancers associated with increased intakes of fat and decreased intakes of fiber have a high prevalence among African-Americans. Increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables may help prevent deaths due to cancer as well as reduce the obesity, diabetes, and hypertension - other major causes of mortality and morbidity in this population. The """"""""Black Churches United for Better Health"""""""" project is a dietary change program that will increase fruit and vegetable consumption in the African-American adult church population. The program will utilize a lay health advisor model to develop social support for dietary change among church members. Ten counties in the northeastern and southeastern parts of the state will be randomly assigned to the intervention or control groups. Five churches from each county with 60 active members will be recruited into the project. The project is divided into three phases: Phase 1, Preintervention Activities, will consist of recruiting the churches for participation development of the nutrition action team which will serve as the liaison between the investigators and the church; development of county coalitions, training conducting focus groups to aid in tailoring and disseminating messages, an& collection of baseline data. Phase 2 will consist of the intervention activities and will be conducted in Years 2 and 3. Activities will include disseminating the 5-A-Day message, launching a media campaign, conducting education sessions on the importance of fruits and vegetables in the diet, increasing the fruit and vegetable offerings at food functions in the church, such as homecoming dinners, vacation bible school, etc., increasing social support by using the lay health advisors approach by modifying recipes and developing a cookbook; and to increase the availability of fruits and vegetables in the environment. This will be accomplished by planting victory gardens, establishing food cooperatives, and involving grocery stores. Local health department and cooperative extension staff will assist in implementing these interventions. The evaluation of the project will take place during Phase 3 (Year 4).
