« I Love Fruit But I Can’t Afford It »: Using Participatory Action Research to Develop Community-Based Initiatives to Mitigate Challenges to Chronic Disease Management in an African American Community Living in Public Housing.

As chronic conditions are on the rise in the USA, management initiatives outside of the inpatient setting should be explored to reduce associated cost and access disparities. Chronic conditions disproportionately affect African American public housing residents due to the effects of historical marginalization on the manifestation of economic and social problems exacerbating health disparities and outcomes. Informed by participatory research action tenets, this study focused on identifying the challenges to management of chronic conditions and developing community-envisioned initiatives to address these challenges in a predominantly African American public housing community. Two focus groups were conducted with former and current public housing residents and were analyzed using inductive content analysis. Physical activity, the cost associated with healthy eating, and lack of information were noted as challenges to chronic disease management. Initiatives discussed were the formation of a walking partner's program to promote physical activity, a shopper's club to exchange coupons and learn how to prepare healthy meals, and a natural remedy's book to share information intergenerationally about management tactics. Challenges identified existed predominantly on the individual and the system level, while the initiatives generated target engaging interpersonal and community relationships. These community-envisioned approaches should be explored to facilitate chronic disease management in public housing neighborhoods.