The Relationship Between Types of Social Support and Physical Activity in African American Church Members

Abstract

PURPOSE: The church is an important source of support for African Americans, and is a place where health behavior interventions can be offered in a manner that is spiritually and culturally acceptable to members. Although the support offered by churches is an inherent strength of faith-based interventions, it is unclear which domains of social support are related to program effectiveness. Faith, Activity, and Nutrition (FAN) is a faith-based, community-based participatory research intervention aiming to increase physical activity (PA) and improve dietary habits in African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church members. We examined the relationship between PA participation and various domains of social support in AME church members at baseline (recruitment is ongoing). METHODS: Non-occupational PA was assessed using the CHAMPS questionnaire (hrs/wk of mod to vig PA). Social support for PA was assessed with 15 items, assessing 4 domains of social support: support from people at church, support from others outside of church (family, friends, colleagues), providing opportunities for PA at church, and providing information about PA at church. To account for the dependency among participants from the same church and cluster, a simultaneous multiple regression analysis was conducted using SAS PROC MIXED. RESULTS: Participants were 421 adults from 27 churches averaging 55 years of age (SD=14.70), 77% female, 46% married, 54% employed for wages, 64% with total household incomes under $40,000/yr, and 87% overweight or obese. Providing opportunities for PA (p=0.0022) and providing information about PA (p=0.0018) were independently and significantly related to greater PA at baseline. Men were significantly more active than women (p=0.0003), and age (p=0.0012) and BMI (p=0.0013) were inversely related to PA. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that organizational types of social support (providing opportunities and information) may be more important than interpersonal forms of social support (church members and others providing encouragement) in faith-based interventions.