Healthy Living Partnerships to Prevent Diabetes in Veterans Pilot Study

Not Applicable

Completed

Interventions: Behavioral: HELP Vets Intervention
Behavioral: Individual Education Program

Brief Summary: Diabetes and obesity are both major public health concerns and the prevalence of diabetes is even higher in the patient population of the Veterans Administration. This planning project is designed to adapt a successful weight-loss program for delivery through an existing outpatient clinic to reach local Veterans at risk for developing diabetes. The information gathered as a part of this project will be used to plan a larger trial designed to improve the health of Veterans by offering them a diabetes prevention program through their usual source of healthcare.

Detailed Description: Type II diabetes and its complications disproportionately affect the patient population served by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Recent lifestyle interventions have demonstrated that weight-loss achieved through reductions in calorie intake and increases in physical activity can prevent or delay the onset of diabetes. The Healthy Living Partnerships to Prevent Diabetes (HELP PD), a community-based adaptation of the lifestyle intervention used in the Diabetes Prevention Program, achieved more than a 7% weight loss at 6 months.

In HELP Vets, researchers will test the feasibility of further translating the HELP PD lifestyle intervention, tailored for use in the Veteran population, in the Kernersville Community-Based Outpatient Clinic operated by the VA. The investigators plan to recruit 50 overweight or obese Veterans at high risk for developing diabetes from the existing patient population to participate in a 6-month weight loss intervention led by community health workers who are also Veterans. As VA outpatient clinics have the requisite infrastructure to identify, screen, and enroll participants and access to Veteran community health workers from within their patient populations, they are ideal potential homes for diabetes prevention programming. Data gathered during this planning grant will be used to develop a large-scale study to test implementing the HELP Vets intervention in a larger segment of the Veteran population.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

BMI 25-40 kg/m2
Evidence of Pre-Diabetes: all participants will be required to qualify based on evidence of prediabetes from fasting plasma glucose, oral glucose tolerance test, or hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) taken in the three months.
The appropriate ranges for each test are
Hemoglobin A1c (HbAlc): 5.7 to 6.4%
Fasting Plasma Glucose: 95-125 mg/dL
Oral Glucose Tolerance Test: 140-200 mg/dL.
Blood measures will be collected from the medical record
Prospective participants must be willing to accept randomization to either the lifestyle intervention or the enhanced usual care condition.

Exclusion Criteria

Currently involved in a supervised program for weight loss
Clinical history of diabetes
Clinical history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) occurring within the past 6 months, including myocardial infarction, angina, coronary revascularization, stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA), carotid revascularization, peripheral arterial disease, and congestive heart failure
Uncontrolled high blood pressure (BP > 160/100) Potential participants can be re-screened after controlled
Pregnancy, planning pregnancy and breast feeding (self-report) during screening; Other chronic disease likely to limit lifespan to less than 2-3 years, including any cancer requiring treatment in past 5 years except non-melanoma skin cancer
Chronic use of medicine known to significantly affect glucose metabolism (e.g., corticosteroids, protease inhibitors)
Other conditions/criteria likely to interfere with participation and acceptance of randomized assignment, including the following: inability/unwillingness to give informed consent, another household member already randomized to HELP Vets, major psychiatric or cognitive problems (schizophrenia, dementia, self-reported active illegal substance or alcohol abuse), participation in another research study that would interfere with HELP Vets.

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Lifestyle Weight Loss	HELP Vets Intervention	Behavioral: HELP Vets Intervention Lifestyle intervention consisting of 24 weekly group meetings led by a Veteran community health worker and 3 individual sessions with a nutritionist/diabetes educator
Enhanced Usual Care	Individual Education Program	Behavioral: Individual Education Program Standard care consisting of 2 individual sessions with a nutritionist/diabetes educator and a monthly newsletter

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Adherence to the Lifestyle Weight Loss Intervention	6 months	The proportion of intervention sessions attended will be calculated.
Recruitment of Study Participants	6 months	To characterize the ability to recruit Veterans to participate in this pilot study, the proportion of Veterans screened who are eligible to participate and the proportion of eligible participants who agree to participate will be calculated. The rate of referrals to the program by providers in the local community-based outpatient clinic will also be monitored.
Retention of Study Participants	6 months	To characterize the ability to retain Veterans in this pilot study, the percentage of participants who complete the study (attendance at the 6-month assessment visit) as a measure of overall study retention will be calculated.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method

Locations (2): W.G. "Bill" Hefner VA Medical Center
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Salisbury, North Carolina, United States
Wake Forest School of Medicine
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Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States