Many community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships address social determinants of health as a central consideration. However, research studies that explicitly address racism are scarce in the CBPR literature, and there is a dearth of available community-generated data to empirically examine how racism influences health disparities at the local level. In this paper, we provide results of a crosssectional, population-based health survey conducted in the urban areas of Genesee and Saginaw Counties in Michigan to assess how a sustained community intervention to reduce racism and infant mortality influenced knowledge, beliefs, and experiences of racism and to explore how perceived racism is associated with self-rated health and birth outcomes. We used ANOVA and regression models to compare the responses of intervention participants and non-participants as well as African Americans and European Americans (N=629). We found that intervention participants reported greater acknowledgment of the enduring and differential impact of racism in comparison to the non-intervention participants. Moreover, survey analyses revealed that racism was associated with health in the following ways: (1) experiences of racial discrimination predicted self-rated physical health, mental health, and smoking status; (2) perceived racism against one's racial group predicted lower self-rated physical health; and (3) emotional responses to racism-related experiences were marginally associated with lower birth-weight births in the study sample. Our study bolsters the published findings on perceived racism and health outcomes and highlights the usefulness of CBPR and community surveys to empirically investigate racism as a social determinant of health.

The purpose is to present the process and results of focus groups conducted to access information for the design of a healthy eating curriculum to reduce maternal nutritional risks and enhance protective factors among African American women in relation to birth outcomes. Sixteen younger (19 to 25 years) and 20 older African American women (45 to 60 years), respectively, participated. The PEN-3 model, (Airhihenbuwa, 1995, 1999) guided the focus groups. Most women stated that culture and family relationships impacted their food choices. Younger women expressed creativity with recipes and presented a desire to be more involved with preparing foods. Older women expressed eagerness to teach family-centered culinary skill-building classes. Both groups of women acknowledged time and budget barriers, identified the prevalence of lactose intolerance, and recognized that large grocery stores that offered food variety were not located in their community. Health professionals are encouraged to consider these findings while designing interventions targeting young African American women's nutrition in relation to birth outcomes.

Participants were asked to select dietary supplements/ herbals used on a regular basis and a few questions about attitudes and behaviors. Results: Reasons for supplement use included: health, immunity, muscle, deficiency, optimal energy/mood. Of the supplements utilized, 53% utilized a multi-vitamin (56% Colorado vs. 49% Wisconsin), 24% used protein as a sports supplement (17% Colorado vs. 38% Wisconsin, p<0.05) and of the herbals and dietary supplements surveyed, 35% used fish oil (35% for both Colorado and Wisconsin). less than 10% of people reported using herbals. Only 58% informed their doctor about supplement use; 64% used medications and supplements simultaneously. Registered dietitians were some of the most underutilized professionals for knowledge acquisition. Conclusions and Implications: People use supplements and many don't inform their healthcare providers about it. Dietitians should be the knowledge source for dietary supplements, but they are not. More effort should be made to have dietitians become trusted sources for supplement education.