A Community-Based Participatory Approach to Personalized, Computer-Generated Nutrition Feedback Reports: The Healthy Environments Partnership

Background: Computer tailoring and personalizing recommendations for dietary health-promoting behaviors are in accordance with community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles, which emphasizes research that benefits the participants and community involved.

Objective: To describe the CBPR process utilized to computer generate and disseminate personalized nutrition feed-back reports (NFRs) for Detroit Healthy Environments Partnership (HEP) study participants.

Methods: The CBPR process included discussion and feedback from HEP partners on several draft personalized reports. The nutrition feedback process included defining the feedback objectives; prioritizing the nutrients; customizing the report design; reviewing and revising the NFR template and readability; producing and disseminating the report; and participant follow-up.

Lessons Learned: Application of CBPR principles in designing the NFR resulted in a reader-friendly product with useful recommendations to promote heart health.

Conclusions: A CBPR process can enhance computer tailoring of personalized NFRs to address racial and socioeconomic disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD).