Community-Based Lifestyle Intervention for Diabetes Prevention in Arab Women

Arab women present increased risk for diabetes, with a 70% greater risk for adult-onset diabetes and a significantly younger age at onset compared with Jewish Israelis. In fact, the rate of diabetes for Arab women in Jerusalem is 4 times higher compared with their Jewish counterparts. Group lifestyle interventions such as the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) have documented effectiveness in preventing diabetes; however, many fail to demonstrate outcome maintenance. We predict that integrating leadership skills training into the gold standard DPP would improve the long-term outcome maintenance.

Stage 1: A pre-post study design will be utilized, where all community participants will be exposed to intervention components. The sample was selected from pre-existing groups in the local community center, based on their leadership potential.

phase 2: The second stage of the trial will not include the leadership component, but instead it will incorporate resiliency training and it aims to evaluate the effect of increased resiliency on the main outcomes including improvement in healthy behaviors such as adherence to Mediterranean diet and as well as a reduction in sedentary lifestyle and increased engagement in physical activity. In addition, resiliency training is likely to improve the maintenance of these behaviors.