Effects of culturally adaptive walking intervention on cardiovascular disease risks for middle-aged Korean-Chinese female migrant workers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a standard treatment (ST) walking program compared to an ST walking program enhanced (enhanced treatment, ET) on cardiovascular health outcomes among Korean-Chinese female migrant workers in Korea. A quasi-experimental sequential design was used. A total of 132 Korean-Chinese women without contraindications to physical activity participated in the study. Both ST and ET groups had monthly goal settings; the ET group received text messages to encourage walking adherence and acculturation. A significant decrease was found in 10-year risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), blood pressure, fasting glucose, body mass index, and waist-hip ratio at weeks 12 and 24 in both groups, but there were no significant group differences. This indicates that culturally adaptive walking intervention is a promising way to reduce CVD risk factors for underserved Korean-Chinese migrant women.

Effect of a Pedometer-Based, 24-Week Walking Intervention on Depression and Acculturative Stress among Migrant Women Workers

“…Primarily, it was difficult to design a randomized controlled trial (RCT) study in a KC migrant community. As mentioned in an earlier related study [19], it is possible that the participants in the intervention group sometimes interact with participants in the control group, which creates bias; however, this is nearly impossible to avoid due to social interactions among individuals in the same residential area [42]. In this study, the number of steps also increased significantly in the ST group provided with the same pedometer as the ET group.…”

“…Therefore, we were left with 132 participants in total. The recruitment and retention of participants is described in an earlier publication of this research project [19].…”

“…CBPR promotes co-learning and capacity building among all partners and facilitates collaborative, equitable partnerships during the entire research process [18]. As such, the research presented herein is expected to empower KC migrant communities and encourage positive health outcomes, including the decrease of cardiovascular disease risks [19]. However, the influence of culturally-adaptive CBPR-based interventions on the mental health outcomes of KC migrant women workers living in Korea is currently not well understood.…”

Effectiveness of diet and physical activity interventions among Chinese-origin populations living in high income countries: a systematic review

“…All eight studies conducted among children/adolescents were conducted in San Francisco, CA, USA [26][27][28][29][30][34][35][36], and all but one [26] were led by the same principal investigator (Chen) ( Table 1). Among adults, one study was set in Australia [37], one in Canada [33], and one in South Korea [38], while all others were conducted in the United States [31,32,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] (Table 2). The average sample size was 60 and 63 among studies conducted in children/adolescents and adults, respectively (Tables 1 and 2).…”

“…Among adults, three studies were randomized controlled trials, nine studies were pre-post single-arm interventions, and two studies were two-group repeated measures quasi-experimental design (Table 4). Interventions included adaptations of the Diabetes Prevention Program [32,37,39,45] DASH diet [33], a cancer survival program [41], diabetes management programs [43,46,47], walking programs [38,40], community-based programs [42], tai chi [44], and an intervention to incorporate more brown rice in the diet [31]. Theoretical models included Transtheoretical Model, Culture Care Theory, Chronic Care model, Theory of reasoned action, Orem's theory of self care, Empowerment model, RE-AIM, Social Cognitive Theory, and traditional Chinese Medicine principles (Table 4).…”