The overall objective is to explore the cultural acceptability and knowledge gained from a food record (FR) instructional video in three separate ethnic-specific focus groups of Hispanic, African-American, and non-Hispanic white men and women aged 18 years and older, who are enrolled or employed at the Southeast Campus of Houston Community College (HCC) in the spring semester of 2008.
Participants will complete a 24h food recall prior to viewing the video and participating in a focus group. After watching the video, each focus group will:· Address the perceptions of how well participants think they can recall key points about FR collection from the instructional video
· Identify dietary habits commonly practiced by the participants' ethnic group that were not addressed in the FR video and that require training for FR collection
· Explore suggestions for modifications of the FR video from each ethnic group in an attempt to determine whether one FR video can be used among all ethnic groups
· Identify any potentially culturally inappropriate statements or situations in the video
The results of these focus groups will be incorporated into a future study designed to test whether an instructional video in FR dietary collection reduces errors in reporting intake over time compared to the traditional one-time in-person instruction in FR collection at baseline by nutritionists. Most epidemiologic studies include dietary information and therefore will benefit from this research. The planned future study will be conducted at several campuses of HCC and therefore we wish to conduct focus groups of members of different ethnic groups reflecting the student enrollment at the college. To our knowledge, the only study to use a FR instructional video, the Polyp Prevention Trial (PPT), did not test its ability to reduce errors in reporting intake, as all participants had access to the video (Hudson 2006). Therefore, the information obtained from these focus groups will provide important strategies in conducting the planned intervention study.
Michele Forman (Principal-Investigator) is trained in anthropology, has 30 years of research in nutritional epidemiology, and has conducted focus groups regarding culture-specific dietary habits in diverse populations nationally and internationally. Previous relevant experience to the project includes focus groups conducted among African American women in Washington D.C., Pima Indians in Arizona, and Guatemalan immigrants to the U.S. Based on a similar project in Washington D.C., Dr. Forman obtained valuable information about the viable application of biomarkers and self-reported methods of dietary intake. |