DASH Diet Intervention at Senior Centers

The Carter Burden Network (CBN) is an New York City senior services agency, providing vital meal programs for low-income, minority seniors, age 60 and over. Its four senior centers serve 300,000 meals annually through congregate breakfasts and lunches, and home-delivered meals. In 2016, CBN formed a community-academic partnership with The Rockefeller University (RU) and Clinical Directors Network (CDN) to conduct a Healthy Aging pilot study at two of its East Harlem sites, finding that 84% of participants had high blood pressure, with up to 27% "uncontrolled" by age-adjusted criteria. Hypertension continues to be a significant, modifiable, but poorly-controlled contributor to morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD), contributing to stroke, heart attack, renal failure, and cognitive decline, increasing healthcare costs and causing loss of function, independence, and quality of life. Replacement of a typical Western diet with the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet has been proven to reduce blood pressure in i hypertensive individuals, and individuals with normal blood pressure in as little as 14 days. However, approaches to effective implementation of the DASH diet are untested in community-living seniors. To address the high cardiovascular risk of uncontrolled hypertension among seniors and introduce innovation into its nutritional program, CBN, RU and CDN designed this two year project to test a DASH-diet-based multi-component intervention to lower blood pressure in two of its senior centers, serving low-income and/or minority seniors. The intervention includes health education, participant input into menu design, redesign of current congregate meals menus to make them with DASH-aligned menus, and home-self monitoring of blood pressure with educational and social support. The primary outcome will be the change in mean systolic blood pressure, measured by health professionals one month after full DASH implementation, compared to baseline. Secondary outcomes include the change in the percentage of seniors with blood pressure in the range of "controlled" by Joint National Committee 8 (JNC-8) guidelines, and the change in blood pressure at three months and at six months. To optimize acceptance of the changes to menu and recipes, clients will be engaged and provide feedback during the design, implementation and conduct phases of the study. Dietary changes will be planned to incorporate client preferences. Clients will provide feedback weekly on menu acceptability referencing a simple smiley face Likert scale. Educational programs will consist of a series of sessions covering nutritional education including recipes and cooking demonstrations, blood pressure information and training in home self-monitoring with a study-provided blue-tooth enabled Omron 10 device, and information to enhance medication adherence. Participants will have pulse, blood pressure, weight, and behavioral aspects of self-efficacy assessed at baseline, and at Months 1, 3, and 6 of after DASH implementation. Surveys to assess quality of life, food frequency (for compliance with DASH-aligned eating outside of congregate meals), menu satisfaction, medication adherence, and other risks relevant to blood pressure management will be assessed at the same Month 0,1,3,6 time points).