Our study consisted of surveying undergraduate and graduate students at a historically black college and university (HBCU) about their knowledge of certain health disparities that affect African Americans. Approval from the Allen University Institutional Review Board was granted to administer an online anonymous health disparity questionnaire to undergraduate and graduate students at Allen University. The questionnaire was administered using the community based participatory research (CBPR) methodology. The sampling criteria consisted of undergraduates enrolled in the Biological Sciences course, Biology I course, Biology II course, or Freshman Seminar course during the spring 2020 semester. The sampling also consisted of graduate students that were currently enrolled in the Dickerson-Green Theological Seminary. The sample size consisted of 114 participants that completed the online questionnaire. The data from the metabolic syndrome questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics, utilizing percentages from a cross-tabulation of individual responses. Most of the participants were African American (89.4%), female (54.9%) and between the ages of 18 and 21 (60.5%). Between 73% and 90.4% of the participants knew that each disease on the survey disproportionately affected African Americans. However, less than 50% knew the risk factors of breast cancer, risk factors of cervical cancer, risk factors of prostate cancer, symptoms of prostate cancer, symptoms of sickle cell anemia and treatments for sickle cell anemia. The next phase of our study will consist of conducting a metabolic syndrome (MetS) questionnaire with the graduate students. The data, along with data from the MetS questionnaire conducted with the undergraduates in a previous study, and the health disparity questionnaire data will be used to construct health disparity educational workshops at Allen University. Keywords: health disparities, historically black colleges and universities, African American college students
Metabolic syndrome among students attending a historically black college: prevalence and gender differences