Public Health Commons^™

Mapping Nevada's Dental Workforce, Kelvin Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Access to care is a concern at the forefront of public health. Due to socioeconomic and geopolitical pressures, the distribution of healthcare providers across a population often does not coincide with the demand for healthcare in a specific geographic area. Rural areas typically do not have enough providers and urban areas typically have too many. This stark reality underscores an inherent inefficiency in the allocation of healthcare resources and is a discrepancy that must be addressed by state-sponsored institutions and programs. From a public health perspective, the problem of insufficient or lack of access to care is the greater of …

Factors Associated With Eosinophilic Esophagitis In Nevada, Julia Lorraine Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a rare immune-mediated illness with symptoms that range from difficulty swallowing to food impaction of the esophagus. Most published studies have been documented among patients residing in cool regions with significant annual rainfall. No published studies to our knowledge have been performed examining the healthcare utilization trends of EoE in Nevada. Utilizing two unique databases, the factors associated with EoE healthcare utilization patterns in Nevada were examined. All analyses were performed in R version 3.5.1. This study included a demographic and regional analysis identifying risk factors associated with having an EoE healthcare visit in Nevada. Several …

Prostate Cancer Survival Among Hispanics: A Surveillance, Epidemiology, And End Results (Seer) Population-Based Cohort Study, David Rivas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Hispanics are now the youngest, largest, and fastest growing minority group in the U.S. Prostate cancer (PC) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among Hispanics. For the first time, we examined PC-specific survival among distinct Hispanic groups that include Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, as well as Central and South Americans. We compared these groups to the main reference population in the U.S., non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), after adjustment for prognostic factor risk categories (prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, Gleason score, and tumor stage), as well as sociodemographic covariates (e.g., health insurance, …

The Effect Of Marriage On Stage At Diagnosis And Survival In Women With Cervical Cancer, Sanae El Ibrahimi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Marriage is associated with improved health outcomes for many conditions. Married persons enjoy financial stability, social and emotional support, and tend to have better control of health risk behaviors compared to the unmarried. The marriage scene is changing continuously. Americans are marrying less or delaying the engagement to an older age. They are divorcing more, they choose cohabitation as an alternative to marriage, or engage in premarital relationships. As a consequence, barely half of Americans were married in 2011 compared to close to three quarters of Americans were married in the sixties. With the increase of the unmarried population - …

The Effectiveness Of Health Education Materials In Influencing Hiv Testing Behavior: The Unlv-Siphi Study, Rebecca Tsegay

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The UNLV-SIPHI (Sexual Health Internet-Based Public Health Intervention) Study focused on HIV prevention by improving HIV testing behavior through the development and dissemination of health education materials. The goal of the UNLV-SIPHI Study was to develop effective, custom-made HIV health education materials that promote the knowledge, intention and practice of HIV testing among UNLV students. The UNLV-SIPHI Study was conducted during Spring 2012 semester in selected UNLV undergraduate classes. An online quasi-randomized-control trial (RCT) was used to measure the difference in HIV testing behavior contributing factors among students exposed to the health education materials. Several nonparametric tests were used to …

Analysis Of The Morbidity And Mortality Of Severe Influenza Infection In Clark County, Nevada For The 2010--2011 Influenza Season, Kindra Maureen St. Jacques

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Influenza circulates in the community in a fairly predictable manner each year; however, throughout the duration of any influenza season, influenza strains have the ability to evolve through antigenic mutations, viral reassortment, development of anti-viral resistance, and alterations in virulence. These changes are likely to cause illness among the unimmunized and can result in severe illness or death. Therefore, it is especially important to closely monitor severe influenza-associated hospitalizations and deaths. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas in collaboration with the Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD), Office of Epidemiology (OOE) analyzed data from the severe hospitalized influenza morbidity and mortality …

Modeling Mortality Rates For Leukemia Between Men And Women In The United States, Blessed Quansah

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Leukemia related deaths increased dramatically over the last forty years. Leukemia is a malignant disease or cancer of the bone marrow and blood. It is characterized by the uncontrolled accumulation of blood cells. Leukemia is divided into two categories: myelogenous or lymphocytic, each of which can be acute or chronic. The terms, myelogenous or lymphocytic denote the cell type involved.

In this thesis, the proposed modeling techniques are applied to leukemia deaths data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER). In particular, annual deaths data from 1969 to 2007 are used in the data analysis, which includes three major …

Oral Cancer In Nevada: A Public Health Perspective, Karl Kingsley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, and oral cancer remains the eighth leading cause of cancer death among US males. Although previous epidemiologic studies have found that overall rates of cancer, including oral cancer, have declined in the US in recent decades – these declines are neither uniform nor consistent within this population. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that rates of oral cancer in Nevada are relatively high, although no evidence was available to support these assertions.

Oral Cancer Epidemiology: Based upon this information, a detailed and thorough epidemiologic examination of oral cancer rates in …