In Sub-Saharan Africa, the leading causes of death are changing. Fewer people are dying of infectious diseases like malaria or tuberculosis, but non-communicable diseases—including heart disease and diabetes—are on the rise. Things are particularly grim in South Africa, where citizens are just as likely to die from a non-communicable disease as they are from anything else.
A healthy diet and regular exercise can greatly reduce the risk of developing most non-communicable diseases. But many South Africans, like many Americans, are overweight or obese, due to poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. Researchers interested in public health have sought to address these issues with little success.
A new study from the Annenberg School for Communication, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that a specially designed health intervention given to South African youth improved healthy eating and amount of exercise, with effects lasting at least 4.5 years.
Administered to sixth grade students, the intervention consisted of 12 one-hour educational modules, implemented over six sessions and given on consecutive school days. Students participated during their extracurricular time at school, in lieu of some other leisure activity.
“We spent years developing the intervention before launching the study,” says Professor John B. Jemmott III, lead author on the paper. “We conducted a series of focus groups with local South Africans to ensure we created something culturally relevant.” He adds, “We had extremely high attendance rates at the intervention sessions and at all the follow-up visits,” Jemmott says. “I’ve never had attendance rates and return rates for data collection as high as this study.”
Read more at the Annenberg School for Communication.
