Abstract

There is a high prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension (HTN) in California’s medically underserved central valley. Affordable and straightforward lifestyle interventions, such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, may improve overall health, well-being, and quality of life in patients with HTN. The DASH diet can contribute to up to 90% and 91% reductions in systolic blood pressure (BP) and diastolic BP, respectively. We have designed a pilot intervention study to investigate the effects of an education intervention on DASH diet comprehension. We predict that for patients with uncontrolled HTN located in medically underserved areas (MUAs) in the central valley of California, an educational intervention will improve subjective and objective measurements of comprehension of the DASH diet. We intend to use this study design to assess an educational intervention’s impacts on under-resourced communities. We plan to expand this study to a full-scale intervention to address uncontrolled HTN in patients in MUAs of the central valley of California.