Family Health Histories: Creating a Culturally Tailored Tool to Reduce Health Disparities in the Black Community

NCT ID: NCT05358964

Last Updated: 2025-09-09

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 100 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2025-03-30
• Study Completion Date: 2026-01-31

Brief Summary

The understanding, utilization and uptake of Family Health History is essential to the prevention of health disparities in the African American community. Creating a culturally tailored Family Health History tool, co-developed by members of the African American community will inform, educate and empower African Americans about health issues related to their family genealogy. Applying the knowledge gained via Family Health Histories to increase preventative behaviors including screenings thus linking people to needed health services to prevent the onset of disease and illness.

Detailed Description

African Americans (AA) suffer disproportionately across most health disparities (HD). Preventative behaviors including screenings can inform proactive measures to address many HD which include: diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, HIV, STDs/STIs, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, most of which can be prevented.1-3 Evidence suggests that a lack of general health literacy (HL) and racially appropriate health communication strategies may contribute to the consistent high rates of health disparities in the AA community. Family Health Histories (FHH), which describe genetic and other familial contributions to health, have been identified as an effective tool for prevention and early detection and screenings. The underutilization of FHHs in AA communities negatively impacts screening and preventative measures that could prevent the onset of disease, illness and ultimately death.4 Although many FHH toolkits have been created to assist families in gathering FHH information, these tools typically are mostly focused for the general population and do not account for the cultural and ethnic nuances, communication preference and health literacy levels of the African American community.4 The failure to effectively engage AA in the creation and conception of culturally relevant FHH tools and activities to date likely contributes to their underutilization in this population.

The objective of this K01 is to develop culturally appropriate FHH tools designed for broad understanding and uptake in AA communities. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that, using a community based participatory research (CBPR) approach, co-development of a culturally appropriate FHH toolkit will increase the utility and engagement of AA families in FHH activities; increase effective health communication within the family structure; and increase the health literacy of participants in a multifaceted effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. Flint is an ideal community in which to conduct this participatory research because the recent events of the Flint Water Crisis have created interest in genetics and FHH in the AA community as a result of community concern around the generational impacts of bacteria and lead exposure on health. Therefore, we will have partners within AA communities in Flint who will be motivated to partner with us to develop these tools for Flint and for other minority communities.

This career development award is being submitted by Dr. Kent Key, a candidate with extensive experience in CBPR and a solid foundation in qualitative and health disparities research. To reach his long term goal of becoming an R01-funded researcher in CBPR to reduce health disparities by increasing health literacy and using effective health communication strategies to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial health disparities for African-American populations, this K01 will provide additional training in the following areas: (1) intervention development and design and conduct of randomized trials, (2) health communication models, (3) health literacy promotion, (4) CBPR approaches to Genomics and Genetics, (5) biostatistics, (6) grant-writing.

Conditions

Hereditary Diseases

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

African American Family Health History Education Program

The AAFHHEP arm is an intervention to increase utilization of FHH and increase preventative screening. This tool will be culturally tailored by African Americans for African Americans.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

African American Family Health History Education Program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The AAFHHEP arm is an intervention to increase utilization of FHH and increase preventative screening. This tool will be culturally tailored by African Americans for African Americans.

Genetic Alliance: Does it run in the family

The Genetic Alliance Does it run in the family is an existing family health history tool kit generalized to all racial groups. This tool is widely available via the internet.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

African American Family Health History Education Program

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The AAFHHEP arm is an intervention to increase utilization of FHH and increase preventative screening. This tool will be culturally tailored by African Americans for African Americans.

Interventions

African American Family Health History Education Program

The AAFHHEP arm is an intervention to increase utilization of FHH and increase preventative screening. This tool will be culturally tailored by African Americans for African Americans.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Other Intervention Names

AAFHHEP

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Self Identify as African American; age 18 and older, English speaking

Exclusion Criteria

• Non English speaking, non African American, younger than 18 years old

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Michigan State University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Kent Key

Assistant Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Kent D Key, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Michigan State University

Locations

Michigan State University

Flint, Michigan, United States

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

United States

Central Contacts

Kent D Key, PhD

Role: CONTACT

keykent@msu.edu

810-600-5663

Jasmine M Hall, MS

Role: CONTACT

halljas1@msu.edu

810-600-9191

Facility Contacts

Kent D Key, PhD

Role: primary

keykent@msu.edu

8106005663

References

Key KD, Lewis L, Blanchard C, Sikorskii A, Patel M, Lucas T, Henry Akintobi T, Bailey S, Loney EH, Johnson JE. Study protocol: Exploring the use of Family Health Histories in the African American community to reduce health disparities in Flint, Michigan. Res Sq [Preprint]. 2024 Apr 1:rs.3.rs-4131949. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4131949/v1.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 38645135 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

00005570

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id