Grad student designing nutrition program for Latino diabetics

Avocados. Plantains. Yams. Papayas. Limas.

These are choices you don’t usually see on a food pyramid prepared for the general population. But they are familiar foods in the Latino community, so they are on the food charts and meal plans that a UConn psychology graduate student designed to help diabetics in Hartford – where the population is nearly one-third Puerto Rican – choose a healthy diet.

Chandra Osborn, a Ph.D. student working with Professor Jeffrey Fisher, is trained in the IMB model, named for “information, motivation, behavior skills,” that Fisher and his colleagues developed in the late 1980s to change the risky behavior of patients infected with HIV.

The model has had demonstrated success with HIV patients and prevention. This has led Fisher, the director of UConn’s Center for Health/HIV Intervention and Prevention (CHIP), and researchers at the center to extend the model to other at-risk health populations.

When she learned at conferences that Latinos and African-Americans are twice as likely as the general population to have diabetes and that Puerto Ricans are among those with the highest rate of the disease, Osborn wanted to find out whether the IMB model could influence the behavior of at-risk Latino diabetics.

“I decided something needs to be done,” she says.

Osborn designed an assessment to help Latinos in Hartford manage their diabetes. Nearly 13 percent of Puerto Ricans in the city have been diagnosed with diabetes, and many more may have the disease and not know it.

With the support of Noemi Cruz, a nutritionist at Hartford Hospital, Osborn’s program was introduced to 118 diabetic patients in the hospital’s adult primary care clinic. Many of the clinic’s patients do not receive personal counseling about managing their diabetes because they lack medical insurance.

The patients were surveyed about their habits and health. They were given a test to measure their average glucose level over three months and a diet plan, based on their activity level, weight, and height.

Half of them became a control group for the study, and half received more extensive counseling. Their risk factors were assessed and discussed with them individually by a Spanish-speaking community health worker, who discussed with them a diet and exercise plan tailored to their needs.

The IMB model guiding the program proposes that if patients have information, motivation, and behavior skills, they will be inclined to make healthy changes in their lifestyle.

Low-income diabetics do not have the resources to join a gym or fitness club, so the health worker recommended alternatives, such as walking to the market, climbing stairs, and joining friends for Latin dancing – anything that fit into a patient’s lifestyle and social patterns.