The JUS Media? Programme: A New Global Health Intervention for Remotely Acculturating Families in Jamaica

Prior research in Jamaica links remote acculturation towards U.S. culture with watching more U.S. cable television and eating more unhealthily (e.g., Ferguson, Muzaffar, Iturbide, Chu, & Meeks Gardner, 2017). We modified a U.S. media literacy program for the Jamaican context, creating the “J(amaican) U(nited) S(tates) Media? Programme”. JUS Media? teaches 7th graders and mothers about nutrition and critical thinking skills about unhealthy U.S. food advertising through 2 interactive workshops supplemented by 8 weeks of follow-up SMS/text messages to reinforce concepts.

Approximately 150 seventh-graders and their mothers in Jamaica were screened. Ninety-two dyads were selected based on moderate/high U.S. identification or U.S. cable viewing, and moderate/high unhealthy eating. Dyads were randomly assigned to groups A: Control, B: Workshop only, or C: Workshop+SMS. Nutrition and media literacy outcomes were measured at 4 points across the 3-month study using questionnaires and 24-hour-food-recalls.

Results revealed that Groups B and/or C scored higher in media literacy than Group A at each assessment point after baseline (repeated measures MANOVAs: Wilk’s Lambda F(2, 1017) = .75, p = .02, ɳ²=.05; univariate ɳ²=.07). Additionally, post hoc repeated measures MANOVAs pooling Groups B and C before SMS supplements began for Group C showed that pooled Groups B+C reported eating more fruits than Group A immediately post-workshop, F(2, 180) = 4.117, p = .02, ɳ²=.04. Results support the efficacy of the JUS Media? Programme and suggest that remote acculturation is a cultural determinant of health which can be used to make global health interventions more targeted and cost-effective.