Filipino Americans (FA) are the second largest (3.4 million) Asian group in the US, and the largest (1.5 million) in California, and have the highest prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) compared to non-Hispanic whites, African Americans and Hispanics. However, there has been little health related research among FA. Improving physical activity (PA) and diet can prevent or delay T2DM, as evidenced by the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) lifestyle intervention, resulting in reducing T2DM risks. However, implementing the DPP has been expensive and labor intensive. A more cost-effective approach may be the use of mobile technologies coupled with social networking. Filipinos (95%) are avid mobile phone users and the leading Facebook users. Thus, we propose to test a culturally competent mobile phone-based Diabetes Prevention Program lifestyle and social networking intervention (MeetUp-DPP) in a pilot 3-month RCT with a wait list active control design in 40 overweight FA.
Aims are to: 1) assess feasibility, 2) obtain preliminary estimates of the short-term effect of the MeetUp-DPP on improving BMI, waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose, HgbA1c, PA, and diet, and 3) conduct post-program process evaluations. To our knowledge, this will be the first such intervention study intentionally targeting overweight FA. If the MeetUp-DPP intervention demonstrates feasibility and potential efficacy, it will lay the foundation for a full scale RCT R18 proposal to demonstrate intervention cost-effectiveness and scalability to significantly prevent or delay the onset of T2DM in FA and other high-risk populations.
Filipino Americans (FA) are the second largest (3.4 million) Asian group in the US. and have the highest prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus compared to non-Hispanic whites, African Americans and Hispanics. However, FA have been underrepresented in health related research, particularly in diabetes prevention. This proposed pilot study is the first clinical trial to assess preliminary estimates of the short-term effect ofthe novel social networking diabetes prevention program lifestyle intervention for this high-risk population.
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