Goal Setting: A Strategy for Reducing Health Disparities

Abstract

The Healthy Rewards study tested the effectiveness of goal setting to encourage behavior change in Latino and African American adults in three northern California counties. Four groups of adults were alternately assigned to receive either 1) basic health promotion and nutrition education without goal setting (control) or 2) the same education with personal goal setting. Participants (n=31) attended four 2-hour weekly sessions over 1 month. While the community-based education was effective in promoting participant behavior change overall, the goal-setting groups reported even greater change than groups who did not engage in goal setting.