Development of a Participatory Capacity- Building Program for Congregational Health Leaders in African American Churches in the US South

<p>African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes and colorectal cancer. Although studies have shown the effective­ness of spiritually based health interventions delivered by community health workers to African Americans, few have described the development of the capacity-building com­ponent. This article describes this process. The development of the Healthy Congre­gations Healthy Communities Program (HCHC) was guided through a community-based participatory research lens and included: 1) establishment of a community coalition; 2) identification by coalition members of churches as the best venues for health promotion strategies among African Americans; 3) recruitment of churches; 4) development of a training manual; 5) recruitment and training of congregational health leaders (CHLs); and 6) “Passing of the torch” from the coalition to the CHLs who implemented the intervention in their con­gregations. We trained 35 CHLs to promote awareness about diabetes and colorectal cancer using a culturally relevant, spiritually based curriculum. Pre- and post-test paired t-tests showed significant increases in CHLs’ knowledge of wellness (P&lt;.001), colorectal cancer (P&lt;.002), nutrition (P&lt;.004), and lifestyle changes (P&lt;.005). The community-academic partnership was successful in developing a culturally relevant, spiritually based capacity-building program for African American CHLs to implement health pro­motion strategies in their congregations and communities.</p><p><em>Ethn Dis.</em>2018;28(1):11-18; doi:10.18865/ed.28.1.11.</p>