Purpose: Mobile health holds strong promise to increase access to diabetes self-management education (DSME) programs in underserved communities. In this report, we examined the preliminary outcomes of a social media-based DSME intervention in low-income Chinese immigrants with type 2 diabetes (T2D) .
Methods: We conducted a single-group pilot study in 30 Chinese immigrants with T2D living in NYC in 2020. Over 12 weeks, participants received 2 brief culturally and linguistically tailored DSME videos each week via WeChat, a free and popular social media app among Chinese immigrants. Participants completed baseline and 6-month surveys with self-efficacy, diabetes self-care behaviors, dietary intake, and physical activity measures. Paired t-tests were used to examine changes over time.
Results: Of the 30 participants, mean (SD) age was 61.2 (6.7) years, 70.0% were women, 63.3% reported high school education, 84.0% reported annual family income of < $25,000, 63.3% were married, and 86.7% had limited English proficiency. Compared to baseline, there were significant improvements in participants’ self-efficacy, diabetes self-care behaviors, dietary intake and physical activity at 6 months (see Table 1) .
Conclusions: Our social media-based DSME intervention demonstrated promising results in improving psychosocial and behavioral outcomes in low-income older Chinese immigrants with T2D.
L.Hu: None. N.Islam: None. N.Jiang: None. K.Tamura: None. R.Jagannathan: None. A.Y.Kharmats: None. O.Bubu: None. M.Sevick: None.
NIH K99MD0128 (PI Dr. Lu Hu) ; NIH R00MD0128 (PI Dr. Lu Hu) , Dr. Anna Kharmats was supported by a postdoctoral training grant from the National Institutes of Health (5T32HL129953-04)
