Toward a lower-sodium lifestyle in black communities.

Reducing sodium intake among black Americans is an especially complex area of hypertension treatment and prevention. Not only are salty foods characteristic of the typical American diet, but certain highly salted and salt-cured foods are also particularly important to black Americans as ethnic foods.A consciousness-raising approach to stimulating community-wide sodium-reduction activities in black communities is needed. Such an approach can be incorporated into ongoing community education programs and is a natural extension of the hypertension control activities of indigenous health workers.Three stages of program activity are out-lined to gradually guide community food attitudes and behaviors toward more moderate sodium consumption. This social-change-oriented alternative to the customary patient-education approach is based on the belief that an eating pattern more favorable to health should be phased into black lifestyles and culture.