Diabetes prevention requires lifestyle changes, and traditional educational programs for lifestyle changes have had low attendance rates in ethnic populations. This article describes the development and implementation of an educational program, emphasizing retention strategies, cultural tailoring and community participation. Community- based participatory research approaches were used to adapt and test the feasibility of a culturally tailored lifestyle intervention (named Health is Wealth) for Filipino-American adults at risk for diabetes (n = 40) in order to increase program attendance. A unique feature of this program was the flexibility of scheduling the eight classes, and inclusion of activities, foods and proverbs consistent with Filipino culture. We found that with this approach, overall program attendance for the experimental and wait-listed control groups was 88% and participant satisfaction was high with 93% very satisfied. Flexible scheduling, a bilingual facilitator for the classes, and the community-academic partnership contributed to the high attendance for this lifestyle intervention. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011.

Lifestyle intervention attendance Diabetes prevention Filipino-American

cultural anthropology curriculum lifestyle Life Style controlled clinical trial health promotion psychological aspect clinical trial methodology Consumer Participation risk human middle aged statistics diabetes mellitus controlled study randomized controlled trial Aged Health Surveys consumer United States Humans Asian Americans male Emigrants and Immigrants Asian American Aged, 80 and over female Article adult migration Social Marketing participatory research Community-Based Participatory Research Philippines Hawaii Culture health survey