The Effects of a Community-Based, Culturally Tailored Diabetes Prevention Intervention for High-Risk Adults of Mexican Descent

This article reports the results of a community-based, culturally tailored diabetes prevention program for overweight Mexican American adults on weight loss, waist circumference, diet and physical activity self-efficacy, and diet behaviors. The intervention used content from the Diabetes Prevention Program but culturally tailored the delivery methods into a community-based program for Spanish-speaking adults of Mexican descent. The design was a randomized controlled trial (N = 58) comparing the effects of a 5-month educational intervention with an attention control group. The primary study outcome was weight loss. Secondary outcomes included change in waist circumference, body mass index, diet self-efficacy, and physical activity self-efficacy. There were significant intervention effects for weight, waist circumference, body mass index, and diet self-efficacy, with the intervention group doing better than the control group. These effects did not change over time. Findings support the conclusion that a community-based, culturally tailored intervention is effective in reducing diabetes risk factors in a 5-month program.