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Project 3: Tailoring a Lifestyle Intervention to Address Obesity Disparities Among Men Vanderbilt-Miami-Meharry Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health

NIH logo Principal Investigator: Derek M. Griffith, PhD

Co-Investigators: Marino A. Bruce, PhD, MSRC, MDiv; Gregory D. (Dan) Ayers, M.S.

Funding Source: National Institutes of Health

Funding Period: 6/1/2016 - 3/31/2020

Mechanism: U54

Location: Nashville, TN and Miami, FL

Project Summary

Our intervention content and focus represents a novel strategy to promote health equity by using technology-based health care innovations to improve healthy eating and active living and encourage tobacco cessation by addressing a root cause of unhealthy behavior in men: notions of manhood. We focus on gender and manhood because they are underexplored factors that shape men’s health behaviors. Specifically, we will (1) use qualitative and quantitative methods to develop and refine gendered survey items that will be used in individually-tailored health communications that focus on manhood; (2) use a cross-sectional survey to test the associations between the survey items and tobacco cessation, eating practices, physical activity and key mediators (e.g., motivation, self-efficacy and social support); and (3) conduct individual interviews to test the accuracy of the health communications profiles that will be used to individually-tailor intervention materials. The focus of this research is consistent with NIH priority areas of health care innovations, health care equity, healthy eating, active living and tobacco cessation. Furthermore, this study can be generalized to other racial and ethnic groups of men.