What’s This Research About?
In the past twenty years there’s been a lot more research on the health benefits of yoga. Unfortunately the research has underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities and people of low socioeconomic status.
These researchers specifically addressed this population with this study. They had two goals. First they assessed beliefs about yoga and the psycho-social factors that either facilitated or deterred their ability to participate in yoga. Second, they gathered data for possible recruitment, study design, and intervention ideas for future research looking at the effects of yoga on sleep.
TITLE: Enhancing Yoga Participation: A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers and Facilitators to Yoga Among Predominantly Racial/Ethnic Minority Low Income Adults
PUBLICATION: Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
DATE: July 2017
AUTHORS : Spadola, R. Rottapel, N. Khandpur, E. Kontos, S. Bertisch, Johnson, M. Quante, S. Khalsa, R. Saper, S. Redline
Mediating mechanisms: Factors that can be altered to facilitate a change in action (e.g., offering childcare to increase likelihood people will go to yoga)
Modifying conditions: Factors that independently affect outcomes but are not influenced by the intervention (e.g., household demands, work schedule, or inability to access transportation to a class)
Social Contextual Model of Health Behavior Change (SCM): Developed by researchers originally to create intervention programs for cancer and public health studies. This model of research takes into account psychosocial factors to identify ways to influence behavior to create better health outcomes. SCM breaks down factors that affect behavior as mediating mechanisms or modifying conditions.