Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Racial Differences In Preventive And Complementary Health Behaviors And Attitudes, Steven E. Shive, Grace X. Ma, Yin Tan, Jamil I. Toubbeh, Lalitha Parameswaran, Lalitha Parameswaran, Joe Halowich

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Screening tests have been developed for many diseases—the presence of cancer, especially—but are differentially utilized among racial/ethnic groups. In addition to standard medical screening techniques, some patients opt to use Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) for prevention and treatment. The purpose of the current study is to examine racial/ethnic disparities in primary and secondary preventive health behaviors, determine differences in use of complementary and alternative health regimens, and determine which health attitudes and health self-management factors are associated with use of complementary alternative medicine. If differences among ethnic/racial groups in perceived health status, preventive health care behaviors, and use of …

Transdisciplinary Approaches To Ameliorating Racial Disparities In Prostate Cancer Outcomes, Chanita H. Halbert, Katrina Armstrong, John Holmes, David Fenstermacher, Janet Weiner, Carmen Guerra, J. S. Schwartz, Jerry C. Johnson, Edmund Weisberg, Chantal Montagnet, Benita Weathers, Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, Ernestine Delmoor, Timothy R. Rebbeck

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Though prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cause cancer deaths among men in the US, it ranks first among African American men in terms of incidence, morbidity, and mortality. To address this and other complex health issues, some researchers advocate transdisciplinary research as a framework for analysis; however, few examples exist that indicate how the framework should be applied. This report uses prostate cancer outcomes as a paradigm to describe how such a framework can be used to identify determinants of racial disparities. By integrating diverse scientific disciplines, methods, and analytic approaches from psychology, sociology, epidemiology and genetics, …

A Pilot Self-Care Group Intervention For Low-Income Hiv-Positive Women, Maithe Enriquez, Margaret S. Miles, Jacki Witt, Paul Gore, Nancy Lackey

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

This article describes the development of a self-care intervention and examines its efficacy with low-income HIV-positive women (n=34) in the Midwestern United States. Adapted from an individual nurse-led intervention, this effort focused on increasing self-care behaviors through enhancing self-esteem and social support. The investigators used a community-based participatory approach and partnered with three HIV-positive women to adapt and pilot test the new group intervention. A within-group, repeated-measures, pre-/post-test design, together with participant interviews, was used to evaluate the intervention. Mean scores on measures of self-care behaviors, self-esteem, social support and depressive symptoms all changed in the clinically desirable direction. Group …

Eliminating Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities: Reconsidering Comparative Approaches, Shawn M. Bediako, Derek M. Griffith

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

The focus on eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities has brought critical attention to the poor health status of minority populations. Assessing the health outcomes of racial minority groups by comparing them to a racial majority standard is valuable for identifying and monitoring health inequities, but may not be the most effective approach to identifying strategies that can be used to improve minority health outcomes. Health promotion planning models and public health history both suggest that minority health promotion is more likely to be derived from interventions rooted in culturally and historically grounded contextual factors. In this essay, we highlight limitations of …

African American Adults’ Experiences With The Health Care System: In Their Own Words, Keri A. Jupka, Nancy L. Weaver, Vetta L. Sanders-Thompson, Nicole M. Caito, Matthew W. Kreuter

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

African Americans suffer a disproportionate burden of death and illness from a number of different chronic diseases. Inequalities in health care practices and poor patient and provider communication between African American patients and health care professionals contribute to these disparities. We describe findings from focus groups with 79 urban African Americans in which the participants discussed their interactions with the healthcare system as well as beliefs and opinions of the healthcare system and professionals. Analysis revealed five major themes: (1) historical and contextual foundations; (2) interpersonal experiences with physicians and other health care workers; (3) discrimination; (4) trust, opinions and …

Promoting Physical Activity In Low Income African Americans: Project Laps, Dorothy W. Pekmezi, Brooke L. Barbera, Jamie S. Bodenlos, Glenn N. Jones, Phillip J. Brantley

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Low income African Americans are at increased risk for physical inactivity and related chronic illnesses. Thus, effective interventions are needed to address these health disparities. The current study examined the efficacy of a home-based physical activity intervention among a low income African American sample with high rates of chronic illnesses (obesity, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol). Participants (n=214) were randomly assigned to either the home-based physical activity intervention (self-help print materials, five monthly newsletters, two telephone counseling sessions) or an attention control condition, which promoted healthy diet. Results indicated that the intervention did not produce significantly greater increases in physical activity …

A Human Capital Approach To Reduce Health Disparities, Saundra Glover, Sudha Xirasagar, Yunho Jeon, Keith Elder, Crystal N. Piper, Harris Pastides

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Objective: To introduce a human capital approach to reduce health disparities in South Carolina by increasing the number and quality of trained minority professionals in public health practice and research.

Methods: The conceptual basis and elements of Project EXPORT in South Carolina are described. Project EXPORT is a community based participatory research (CBPR) translational project designed to build human capital in public health practice and research. This project involves Claflin University (CU), a Historically Black College University (HBCU) and the African American community of Orangeburg, South Carolina to reduce health disparities, utilizing resources from the University of South Carolina (USC), …

Exposing Racial Discrimination: Implicit & Explicit Measures – The My Body, My Story Study Of 1005 Us-Born Black & White Community Health Center Members, Nancy Krieger, Pamela D. Waterman, Anna Kosheleva, Jarvis T. Chen, Dana R. Carney, Kevin W. Smith, Gary G. Bennett, David R. Williams, Elmer Freeman, Beverley Russell, Gisele Thornhill, Kristin Mikolowsky, Rachel Rifkin, Latrice Samuel

Elmer Freeman

Background: To date, research on racial discrimination and health typically has employed explicit self-report measures, despite their potentially being affected by what people are able and willing to say. We accordingly employed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) for racial discrimination, first developed and used in two recent published studies, and measured associations of the explicit and implicit discrimination measures with each other, socioeconomic and psychosocial variables, and smoking. Methodology/Principal Findings: Among the 504 black and 501 white US-born participants, age 35-64, randomly recruited in 2008-2010 from 4 community health centers in Boston, MA, black participants were over 1.5 times more …