Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Realmente Tenemos La Capacidad: Engaging Youth To Explore Health In The Dominican Republic Through Photovoice, Catalina Tang Yan, Arelis Moore De Peralta, Edmond P. Bowers, Linda Sprague Martinez

Arelis Moore de Peralta

Youth are often at risk for physical and psychosocial illnesses, and yet their input is rarely included in health assessments and interventions. Two U.S.-based universities partnered with community stakeholders and youth in Las Malvinas II, Dominican Republic to explore factors that promote and/or hinder the health of youth in Las Malvinas II. Youth (n=8) conducted a photovoice, and identified six key health priorities: (1) good nutrition, (2) depression and poverty, (3) violence, (4) sports and neighborhood association, (5) education, and (6) sanitation and community infrastructure. Findings revealed youth’s exploration of complex multi-level determinants of health. This study suggests youth have …

Using Community-Engaged Research To Explore Social Determinants Of Health In A Low-Resource Community In The Dominican Republic: A Community Health Assessment, Arelis Moore De Peralta, Lauren Davis, Katherine Brown, Michelle Fuentes, Suzanne Falconer, Jenneil Charles, Michelle Eichinger

Arelis Moore de Peralta

Introduction:

Previously published community health assessments (CHA) have explored social determinants of health in low-resource, Haitian-majority Dominican communities. The present CHA was conducted in Las Malvinas II, a Dominican-majority low-resource community, and represented a first step for developing a building a healthier community process.

Method:

A binational community–academic partnership adapted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s CHANGE (Community Health Assessment and Group Evaluation) guide to conduct a CHA through community-engaged, mixed-methods research. Data were collected on five community selected public health priorities (i.e., education, sanitation, unwanted pregnancies, chronic disease management, and vaccine-preventable diseases) and community assets through focus groups, …

Impact Belize 2010 Executive Report, Ritchie D. Taylor, Jordan Norris, Molly Calico, Bernie Strenecky, Daniel Carter, Dawn Garrett Wright, Eve Main, Bonny Petty, Molly Kerby, Jill Norris

Eve Main

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Major Issues For Culturally-Minded Professionals In Women's Health Care, Victoria Clark

Victoria Clark

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature, Vol. 1, Jon Miller

Jon Miller

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Music Therapy : Bridging The Generational Gap Through Community-Based Music Making., Michael R. Detmer, Petra Kern, Jill Jacobi-Vessels, Kristi M. King

Kristi King

No abstract provided.

Racial Classifications, Biomarkers, And The Challenges Of Health Disparities Research In The African Diaspora., Latrica E. Best, John Chenault

John Chenault

Current scholarly research, both sociologically and biologically based, continues to be inundated with notions of race operating as a biological construct and as a proxy for poor health outcomes. Medical research and practice have fostered an environment where diagnostics, treatment, and the creation and dissemination of drug regimens often are influenced by a patient’s skin color and ethnicity. The emergence of biological markers in social science-based surveys has fueled recent health disparities research that is shaping the meaning, interpretation, and policy of the health of people of color. Using hypertension as an example, this paper focuses on ways in which …

Deaf Individuals’ Bilingual Abilities: American Sign Language Proficiency, Reading Skills, And Family Characteristics, Brittany Freel, M. Clark, Melissa Anderson, Gizelle Gilbert, Millicent Musyoka, Peter Hauser

Melissa L. Anderson

The current study investigated the bilingual abilities of 55 Deaf individuals, examining both American Sign Language (ASL) competency and English reading skills. Results revealed a positive relationship between ASL competency and English skills, with highly competent signers scoring higher on a measure of reading comprehension. Additionally, family characteristics (e.g., parental education level, family hearing status) were entered into the analysis to ascertain their effect on Deaf individuals’ bilingual abilities. The findings support the theory that competency in ASL may serve as a bridge to the acquisition of English print. Moreover, the findings provide support for the critical period hypothesis for …

In Search Of Justification For The Unpredictability Paradox, Jeremy Howick, Alexander Mebius

Alexander Mebius

A 2011 Cochrane Review found that adequately randomized trials sometimes revealed larger, sometimes smaller, and often similar effect sizes to inadequately randomized trials. However, they found no average statistically significant difference in effect sizes between the two study types. Yet instead of concluding that adequate randomization had no effect the review authors postulated the “unpredictability paradox”, which states that randomized and non-randomized studies differ, but in an unpredictable direction. However, stipulating the unpredictability paradox is problematic for several reasons: 1) it makes the authors’ conclusion that adequate randomization makes a difference unfalsifiable—if it turned out that adequately randomized trials had …

Perspectives On Cancer Screening Among Latino Community Members And Internal Medicine Residents, Debbie Salas-Lopez, Dawne Mouzon, Jonnie Marks, Neil Kothari, Ana Natale-Pereira

Debbie Salas-Lopez MD, MPH

BACKGROUND: Latinos have lower rates of cancer screening, partially because of cultural beliefs that conflict with those of health care professionals. Moreover, established programs for training physicians in cultural competency often fail to incorporate input from the community.

METHODS: To explore beliefs about cancer and cancer screening among Latino community members and internal medicine residents. Three focus groups of Latino community members (n = 31) and one focus group of internal medicine residents (n = 9) were conducted to compare ideas regarding cancer and cancer screening.

RESULTS: We identified clear disconnects between residents and Latino community members regarding their understandings …

Cultural Competency In New Jersey: Evolution From Planning To Law, Debbie Salas-Lopez, Linda Holmes, Dawne Mouzon, Maria Soto-Greene

Debbie Salas-Lopez MD, MPH

No abstract provided.

Is Food Marketing Making Us Fat? Fat Cats Vs Dogmatists., Stephen S. Holden

Stephen S Holden

For many, it seems obvious that food marketing is making us fat. The anger and outrage that was once evoked by tobacco companies is now being repackaged and aimed at ‘Big Food’ (Hennessy, 2014). But is it justified, is food marketing the cause of obesity? And in any case, does outrage and dogmatism help solve the problem? This paper suggests that blaming the marketers, both Big Food and "lazy leisure", is a disputable claim, and dangerously shifts responsibility from individuals to external agents.

Attitudes Toward Sexuality And Sexual Behaviors Of Asian-American Adolescents: Implications For Risk Of Hiv Infection, Connie S. Chan

Connie Chan

Until 1990, Asian Americans represented an ethnic minority group that was perceived to be at lower risk than African Americans or Hispanics/Latinos for HIV infection, the presumed causal agent for AIDS. Reasons cited for this perception include behavioral differences in intravenous drug use, sexual behavioral habits, and underidentification of AIDS cases. However, in urban areas such as San Francisco, Toronto, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and Seattle, where Asians have immigrated and settled in large numbers, cases of HIV infection and AIDS have begun to increase dramatically, perhaps reflecting the rise in the number of AIDS cases in Asia. In …

Frequency Of Private Spiritual Activity And Cardiovascular Risk In Post-Menopausal Women: The Women's Health Initiative, Elena Salmoirago Blotcher, George Fitchett, Kathleen M. Hovey, Eliezer Schnall, Cynthia Thomson, Christopher A. Andrews, Sybil Crawford, Mary Jo O'Sullivan, Stephen Post, Rowan T. Chlebowski, Judith K. Ockene

Sybil L. Crawford

Purpose: Spirituality has been associated with better cardiac autonomic balance, but its association with cardiovascular risk is not well studied. We examined whether more frequent private spiritual activity was associated with reduced cardiovascular risk in postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study. Methods: Frequency of private spiritual activity (prayer, Bible reading, and meditation) was selfreported at year 5 of follow-up. Cardiovascular outcomes were centrally adjudicated, and cardiovascular risk was estimated from proportional hazards models. Results: Final models included 43,708 women (mean age: 68.9±7.3; median follow-up: 7.0 years) free of cardiac disease through year 5 of follow-up. In …

Addressing Economic Devastation And Built Environment Degradation To Prevent Violence: A Photovoice Project Of Detroit Youth Passages, Louis Graham, Armando Reyes, William Lopez, Alana Gracey, Rachel Snow, Mark Padilla

Louis Graham

This project increased awareness about issues of violence to youth, their communities, and policy makers through the technique of photovoice and its translation into photo exhibitions and other community events. Youth participants learned photography skills, engaged in critical communal discussions about important issues affecting their health, wrote reflective stories about their photos, and engaged in policy change efforts. Their photos depict the need to address economic devastation and built environment degradation to prevent violence in their communities. Youth presented policy makers and community leaders with an “insider’s perspective” of the issues facing their communities, with the hope of promoting policy …

Commentary: Critical Analysis Of Chiropractic At The Crossroads Or Are We Just Going Around In Circles., Dennis M. Richards

Dennis M Richards

This commentary presents critical analysis of a paper published by Dr John Reggars, and based, as he admitted, on his perceptions and opinions. Many of those are wrong. Others raise important questions. Sourced from a lecture presented by him at the 2010 annual conference of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australia (‘COCA’), this polemic is best understood in its historical and political contexts. COCA’s objects include political activity and Reggars is its vice president, which he failed to declare.

Vitalism And Value In Undergraduate Chiropractic Education, Dennis M. Richards

Dennis M Richards

Vitalism is a philosophical viewpoint with ancient origins. In more recent times it has been discussed as a reaction to dominant reductionist and mechanist models in science and health. A ‘new vitalism’ incorporates recent developments in philosophy and science.

Demographic changes, particularly ageing, are occurring in many societies. These changes and the rise of non-communicable diseases resulting from unhealthy lifestyles challenge biomedicine’s ability to address them and societies’ abilities to pay for treatment of them.

Chiropractic was founded on and continues to involve vitalist thinking. A vitalist approach by chiropractors might offer solutions to these challenges. Such an approach would …

Australian Consumer Attitudes To Health Claim - Food Product Compatibility For Functional Foods, P. G. Williams, L. Ridges, M. Batterham, B. Ripper, M. C. Hung

Dr Marijka Batterham

This study with Australian consumers investigated how appealing different health claims combined with particular food carriers were to Australian consumers, and compared the results of a similar study with Dutch consumers. 149 shoppers considered up to 30 different food concepts, rating how ‘attractive’, ‘believable’, and ‘new and different’ they found each concept and their ‘intention to try’. Each variable was significantly related to intention to try (p<0.001) and together explained 56% of the intention score. Claims and carriers independently had a significant effect on ratings of attractiveness and intention to try but, unlike the Dutch study, the carrier was a more important predictor of intention to purchase than the claim. Implications for regulation of health claims for food are discussed.

Designing An Information-Experience Using Creativity Science & Tools, Stephanie Belhomme

Stephanie Belhomme

An “information-experience” encapsulated by a technological/digital audio-visual tool presents data and potentially meaningful information to prompt actionable knowledge concerning: “unspoken creative process elements;” their profound impacts on both how well our “physiology of creativity” functions but also; how well foundational creative thinking and behavioral prerequisites (energy, motivation, imagination, and ownership) are leveraged.

The product: 1) introduces the user to one component of the CPS (Creative Problem Solving) Facilitation Process - Exploring the Challenge; 2) features a content specific component which prompts exploration of the many correlations between societal, organizational / community, human physiological / behavioral data, and the direct relationships …

Kenya Keen On Achieving Targets On Neglected Diseases, Richard Wamai

Richard G. Wamai

No abstract provided.

The Clinical Gaze In The Practice Of Migrant Health: Indigenous Mexican Migrants In The United States, Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

This paper utilizes eighteen months of ethnographic and interview research undertaken in 2003 and 2004 as well as follow-up fieldwork from 2005 to 2007 to explore the sociocultural factors affecting the interactions and barriers between U.S. biomedical professionals and their unauthorized Mexican migrant patients. The participants include unauthorized indigenous Triqui migrants along a transnational circuit from the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, to central California, to northwest Washington State and the physicians and nurses staffing the clinics serving Triqui people in these locations. The data show that social and economic structures in health care and subtle cultural factors in biomedicine keep …

Identifying Self-Perceived Hiv-Related Stigma In A Population Accessing Antiretroviral Therapy, D. Tzemis, J. Forrest, C. Puskas, W. Zhang, Treena Orchard, A. Palmer, C. Mcinnes, K. Fernandes, J. Montaner, R. Hogg

Dr. Treena Orchard

No abstract provided.

'So It's Always A Dance': The Politics Of Gifts And Governance At A Drop-In Centre For Vulnerable Women In London, Ontario, Treena Orchard, Sara Farr, Susan Macphail

Dr. Treena Orchard

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Health Services And Identification Of Needs For Asian American Elderly Women In The Greater Boston Area, Connie S. Chan, Lin Zhan

Connie Chan

Over one hundred Asian American and mainstream health care providers in the greater Boston area were surveyed for this study. The authors have identified critical gaps in services for elderly Asian American women.

Targeting Diseases Beyond Our Borders, Richard Wamai

Richard G. Wamai

No abstract provided.

Public Health And Public Wealth: Social Costs As A Basis For Restrictive Policies, David T. Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

Historically, the most important rationale for coercive public health measures has been the prevention of disease and injury to others. However, as noncommunicable diseases and accidents have assumed increased importance as causes of morbidity and mortality, and as the connection between noncommunicable diseases and accidents and individual practices such as smoking and drinking has become more apparent, a new line of argument based on social costs has emerged. My purpose is both to describe and evaluate the social-costs argument, to explain why it has become so popular, and to show what must be done to make it consistent with its …

Southern Discomfort, Carl S. Gaines

Carl S Gaines

No abstract provided.

Clinical Subjectivation: Anthropologies Of Contemporary Biomedical Training., Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md, Angela C. Jenks Phd, Scott Stonington Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

No abstract provided.

En-Case-Ing The Patient: Disciplining Uncertainty In Medical Student Patient Presentations., Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md, Maya Ponte Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

The problem-oriented medical record is the widespread, standardized format for presenting and recording information about patients, which is taught to future physicians early in their medical training. Based on our participant obser- vation of medical training, we analyze the ways in which the patient presentation operates in medical training as a disciplinary technology that manages uncertainty in the clinical decision-making process. We uncover various mechanisms at work including the construction of a coherent narrative structure in which chaotic experiences are re-organized and re-interpreted to fit neatly in a linear plot with a predictable ending, the atomization of the patient as …

Structural Vulnerability And Hierarchies Of Ethnicity And Citizenship On The Farm., Seth M. Holmes Phd, Md

Seth M. Holmes PhD, MD

Every year, the United States employs nearly two million seasonal farm laborers, approximately half of whom are migrants (Rothenberg 1998). This article utilizes one year of participant observation on a berry farm in Washington State to analyze hierarchies of ethnicity and citizenship, structural vulnerability, and health disparities in agriculture in the United States. The farm labor structure is organized along a segregated continuum from US citizen Anglo-American to US citizen Latino, undocumented mestizo Mexican to undocumented indigenous Mexican. The ethnography shows how this structure symbolically reinforces conflations of race with perceptions of civilized and modern subjects. These hierarchies produce what …