A Mobile Health Intervention to Reduce Diabetes Disparities in Chinese Americans

Chinese Americans are one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in the US, who suffer disproportionately high type 2 diabetes (T2D) burden and have poorly controlled T2D. Despite the well-documented T2D disparities in this minority group, limited work has been conducted to improve health outcomes in Chinese Americans. The goal of this Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) is to expedite the candidate's transition to an independent investigator who possesses focused expertise in development and evaluation of culturally and linguistically tailored and sustainable interventions to reduce T2D disparities in Chinese Americans. In the K99 phase of this award, the candidate will obtain critical training needed to accomplish this goal and will develop a short message service (SMS) intervention to improve T2D management in Chinese Americans.

More specifically, the aims are to 1) characterize barriers and facilitators of glycemic control in Chinese Americans with T2D (Aim 1a); 2) develop culturally and linguistically tailored SMS intervention content (Aim 1b); and 3) assess the feasibility and acceptability of the SMS intervention in a pre-, post-test study (Aim 1c).

In the R00 phase, the candidate will refine the SMS intervention based on the K99 pilot data and evaluate the proof-of-concept regarding its efficacy in a pilot randomized controlled trial among 66 Chinese Americans with T2D (Aim 2). Participants will be randomized to one of 2 arms (n=30 each): 1) wait-list control and 2) SMS intervention. Both groups will continue to receive standard of care treatment for their T2D. The SMS group will receive brief lifestyle counseling videos via SMS links. At the end of the study, the wait-list control group will be provided the opportunity to receive the SMS-based counseling videos. Measurements will be obtained at baseline, 3, and 6 months. The primary outcome is HbA1c and secondary outcomes include self-efficacy, diabetes self-management behaviors, dietary intake and physical activity behaviors. Linear mixed modeling will be used to examine the group and group by time interaction effects between the SMS intervention and wait-list control group. Findings from this R00 study will inform a larger full-scale R01 efficacy trial of the SMS intervention, and ultimately, establish the candidate's program of research focused on developing and testing sustainable interventions to reduce disparities in chronic disease outcomes in Chinese Americans. This project can serve as a program model for other chronic disease interventions in Chinese Americans that require lifestyle modification (e.g., prediabetes, hypertension), or for disparities research in other high-risk immigrant populations (e.g., South Asians, Hispanic Americans).