Major
Public Health
Anticipated Graduation Year
2023
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including heart disease, hypertension, heart attack, or stroke, continue to be the leading cause of death in the United States. Fruit and vegetable consumption and dietary habits are a known preventative strategy that mitigates the effects of CVD. African American women experience a disproportionate rate of CVD mortality and there is evidence that this demographic does not have the necessary intake of daily fruit and vegetables. Despite these understandings, there is a lack of published literature that investigates factors that influence fruit and vegetable consumption in African American women. This literature review will review present literature on the varying factors that influence dietary habits of this demographic through the Socio-ecological model (SEM). Utilizing the SEM will allow for a multifaceted approach to be used to investigate these different factors as it reveals different levels of influence of behavior. Studies included in the review met the eligibility requirement of participant demographics of 50% female-identifying African American individuals. Findings included that self-efficacy, which is the belief in an individual’s own motivation, was one of the most influential factors in dietary habits in African American women. This will push for future interventions to be built around improving self-efficacy in African American women in order to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and indirectly lessen the mortality rate of CVD in this population.
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Sparkle Springfield, PHD, Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health ; Justin Harbison, PHD, Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Literature Review Investigating the Fruit and Vegetable Consumption of African American Women Through the Socio-Ecological Model
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), including heart disease, hypertension, heart attack, or stroke, continue to be the leading cause of death in the United States. Fruit and vegetable consumption and dietary habits are a known preventative strategy that mitigates the effects of CVD. African American women experience a disproportionate rate of CVD mortality and there is evidence that this demographic does not have the necessary intake of daily fruit and vegetables. Despite these understandings, there is a lack of published literature that investigates factors that influence fruit and vegetable consumption in African American women. This literature review will review present literature on the varying factors that influence dietary habits of this demographic through the Socio-ecological model (SEM). Utilizing the SEM will allow for a multifaceted approach to be used to investigate these different factors as it reveals different levels of influence of behavior. Studies included in the review met the eligibility requirement of participant demographics of 50% female-identifying African American individuals. Findings included that self-efficacy, which is the belief in an individual’s own motivation, was one of the most influential factors in dietary habits in African American women. This will push for future interventions to be built around improving self-efficacy in African American women in order to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and indirectly lessen the mortality rate of CVD in this population.