Understanding Context in a Diabetes-Related Healthy Eating Initiative in Rural America

Abstract

The Institute on Aging and Social Work (the institute) supported directed efforts to enhance the research capacity of academics in gerontology across the nation. Due to my participation in the institute, I received intensive training in aging research from distinguished professors as well as staff from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a direct result of my training, my colleagues and I were able to secure a $2.5 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The aim of the five-year grant is to reduce diabetes-related inequalities in vulnerable populations that include rural older adults of lower socioeconomic status. The research skills learned at the institute were instrumental in the development of my focused research agenda on reducing individual blame and the injustice and inequality that originate within the social determinants of health. Since the institute, I have shared my knowledge developed at the institute with colleagues and students. In this article, I describe my training at the institute and then focus on one aspect of the CDC-funded study: the testing of a conceptual model explaining dietary self-management practices for adults living with diabetes, and the development of potential strategies to overcome individual and contextual barriers to dietary self-management adherence, using principles of participatory action research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to my colleagues at the Kent School of Social Work, Pamela A. Yankeelov, Joseph G. D'Ambrosio, and Wanda L. Collins, for their collaboration with me on this project. I also want to thank the rural older adults living with diabetes who were willing to participate in this study. Special thanks to the community organizers, Elaina Burks, Jessica Craddock, and Mona Huff, and the KRDC coalition members, who encouraged the older adults to take a leap of faith to work side by side with the researchers mostly unknown to their community.