Despite the tremendous progress that has been made in improving heart health in the US population during the last decade, many ethnic minority populations are still experiencing significant health disparity gaps. In particular, low health literacy in populations with limited English skills has undoubtedly hindered the development of effective strategies for improving health outcomes and reducing health disparity gaps. This research application is formulated in response to the widely recognized need for health literacy promoting intervention. This research effort is designed to answer research questions that address critical knowledge gaps in the field of health literacy intervention for linguistically and/or socially isolated ethnic minority communities, using the Korean American community as an example. These questions include whether or not: 1) a health literacy-focused intervention using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) process will be effective in promoting health literacy and achieving better HBP outcomes in a community that is known as one of the """"""""hard-to reach"""""""" populations for clinical research; and (2) an intervention delivered by lay health workers (i.e., community health workers) teamed with registered nurses will be acceptable and effective in such a community. The proposed study is a community-based, randomized clinical trial with delayed intervention and a longitudinal repeated measures design that will allow us to determine the effectiveness of the proposed health literacy-focused HBP intervention. A total of 360 Korean American seniors will participate in this study over two- year period. While the focus of this research project is literacy promotion and HBP control in Korean American immigrant seniors, it is our belief that the core components of this intervention's principles and methodology can provide meaningful insights to other researchers who are seeking to develop effective, culturally sensitive health literacy programs to meet the needs of socially and/or linguistically isolated minority groups with HBP throughout the U.S. ? ? ?
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