Understanding barriers to healthy behaviors in black college men

ABSTRACT

Objective: Due to the short life expectancy of black men, it is important to understand what impacts health behaviors in this group so that interventions and programs can be developed to improve their health behaviors which may help in increasing the life expectancy of black men. The purpose of this study was to understand what perceived barriers exist for black college men that prevent them from engaging in healthy behaviors. Participants and Methods: Thirty-five black male students at a southern Historically Black College and University participated in five focus groups and four interviews. A qualitative analysis was used to analyze data for similar themes and codes. Results: Perceived barriers to engaging in healthy behaviors appear to be influenced by image, food cost, and education. Cues to action for not engaging in healthy behaviors appear to be related to role models. Conclusions: Black college men are not adequately informed or educated about elements that can impact their health and how they can improve it. College administrators and researchers should develop interventions that include elements of increasing health knowledge and age-appropriate role models to improve health behavior change among this group.

KEYWORDS:

• Black men
• college
• health behaviors
• qualitative

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank Candice Moses, Alinna Sam, and Betool Ridha for their assistance with this project.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the Institutional Review Board of Xavier University of Louisiana.

Funding

This proposal was made possible by funding from the NIGMS-BUILD grant number 8UL1GM118967-02 and the RCMI grant number 2G12MD007595-06 from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. This research was also made possible by funding from the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the NIH.