African American women suffer higher rates of uncontrolled hypertension than do non-Hispanic white women. Prime Time Sister Circles(r) (PTSC) empowers women to proactively manage their blood pressure by promoting the effective use of preventive health care; encouraging self-monitoring of blood pressure, and teaching strategies for managing stress, increasing physical activity, and improving nutrition. The 12-week community-based, holistic lifestyle intervention aims to improve blood pressure control by improving health knowledge, health efficacy, and health behaviors. PTSC potentially reduces health care costs through prevention, earlier detection, and improved management of hypertension through a culturally tailored program addressing specific barriers experienced by midlife and late life African American women. The proposed 5-year study is a collaboration between The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS), The Gaston & Porter Health Improvement Center, Inc. (GPHIC), the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Unity Health Care, Inc. (Unity). We propose to determine the impact and cost- effectiveness of the PTSC intervention among low-income African American women with uncontrolled hypertension. To do this, we will randomly assign 600 women between the ages of 40 and 75 who receive their care from Unity to either PTSC (n=300) or a comparison group (n=300) who will receive the PTSC intervention after they have been observed for 15 month. Using data from patient surveys and Unity's administrative records, we will determine if PTSC help low-income African American women effectively manage their blood pressure.
The primary objective of this research project is to assess the impact and cost-effectiveness of the Prime Time Sister Circles(r) (PTSC) intervention among low-income mid- and late life African American women with uncontrolled hypertension. PTSC empowers African American women to proactively control their blood pressure by promoting the effective use of preventive health care; providing screening and monitoring of blood pressure and weight, and teaching strategies for managing stress, increasing physical activity, and improving nutrition. The PTSC is a community-based, holistic lifestyle intervention designed to improve hypertension control, health knowledge, health efficacy, and health behaviors and reduce health care costs.
