Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

Diabetes is more prevalent in the Black population due to genetic factors, lifestyle choices, socio-economic disparities, and limited healthcare access. Effective self-management strategies focus on medication management, including insulin injections, nutrition, and physical activity. Recent research emphasizes the need for culturally appropriate self-management approaches that reflect traditional diets, preferred languages, and cultural beliefs related to medication adherence and physical activity. Despite emerging evidence, there is still a lack of synthesized research on culturally appropriate self-management strategies for Black older adults living with diabetes or prediabetes. To address this gap, the URSA student will conduct a scoping review aimed at synthesizing existing evidence on culturally appropriate self-management for this demographic. Under my guidance, the student will follow Arksey and O'Malley's five steps, identifying the research question, searching relevant studies across multiple databases, selecting studies, charting the data, and summarizing the results. This review will help identify key components that are culturally relevant for effective diabetes management.