African American Men's Health Compliance and Maintenance

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research will evaluate the effectiveness of a community intervention with African American men. The goal of the intervention is to increase attitudes and behaviors conducive to maintaining and improving health. African American men will be recruited to participate in a workshop that will examine their health behaviors, and their beliefs and attitudes about masculinity, health, health seeking, and the healthcare system. The intervention will address their beliefs and attitudes in order to affect positive change in their masculinity ideology and health-related attitudes and behaviors. The workshop will be psychoeducational and use a variety of methods (e.g., didactic, group discussion, use of role models, and visual presentations). To assess the efficacy of the intervention, pre- and post-testing (three months later) of the intervention will be done and a control group will be used. The workshop will be offered in two different settings (hospital, YMCA) and geared toward three different age groups or developmental stages (early, middle, and late adulthood). Thus, data collected will provide information on the health-related issues of men at different stages of life that can be useful in future intervention programming, educational outreach, and the development of educational and training programs for health care practitioners to improve service to and retention of African American men.