Minority Health and Health Equity Archive
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769
Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.
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Item The Urban Context: A Place to Eliminate Health Disparities and Build Organizational Capacity(2010) Gilbert, Keon L.; Quinn, Sandra Crouse; Ford, Angela F.; Thomas, Stephen B.This study seeks to examine the process of building the capacity to address health disparities in several urban African American neighborhoods. An inter-organizational network consisting of a research university, community members, community organizations, media partners, and foundations was formed to develop a community-based intervention designed to provide health promotion and disease prevention strategies for type 2 diabetes and hypertension. In-depth qualitative interviews (n = 18) with foundation executives and project directors, civic organization leadership, community leaders, county epidemiologist, and university partners were conducted. Our study contextualizes a process to build a public health partnership using cultural, community, organizational, and societal factors necessary to address health disparities. Results showed 5 important factors to build organizational capacity: leadership, institutional commitment, trust, credibility, and inter-organizational networks. These factors reflected other important organizational and community capacity indicators such as: community context, organizational policies, practices and structures, and the establishment of new commitments and partnerships important to comprehensively address urban health disparities. Understanding these factors to address African American health disparities will provide lessons learned for health educators, researchers, practitioners, foundations, and communities interested in building and sustaining capacity efforts through the design, implementation, and maintenance of a community-based health promotion interventionItem The National Negro Health Week, 1915 to 1951: A Descriptive Account(2001) Quinn, Sandra Crouse; Thomas, Stephen B.In 1914, Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, viewed the poor health status of black Americans as an obstacle to economic progress and issued a call for "the Negro people... to join in a movement which shall be known as Health Improvement Week" (Patterson, 1939). Health Improvement Week evolved into the National Negro Health Week, observed annually for 35 years. This article provides an overview of the structure and activities of the National Negro Health Week and suggests implications for public health in the black community today.Item The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932 to 1972: Implications for HIV Education and AIDS Risk Education Programs in the Black Community(1991) Thomas, Stephen B; Quinn, Sandra CrouseThe Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male is the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history. The strategies used to recruit and retain participants were quite similar to those being advocated for HIV/AIDS preention programs today. Almost 60 years after the study began, there remains a trail of distrust and suspicion that hampers HIV education efforts in Black communities. The AIDS epidemic has exposed the Tuskegee study as a histotical marker for legitimate discontent of Blacks with the public health system. The belief that AIDS is a form of genocide is rooted in a social context in which Black Americans, faced with persistent inequality, believe in conspiracy theories about Whites against Blacks. These theories range from the belief that the government promotes drug abuse in Black communities to the belief that HIV is a manmade weapon of racial warfare. An open and honest discussion of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study can facilitate the process of rebuilding trust between the Black community and public health authorities. This dialogue can contribute to the development of HIV education programs that are scientifically sound, culturally sensitive, and ethnically acceptable.Item Building Community Trust: Lessons From an STD/HIV Peer Educator Program With African American Barbers and Beauticians(2002) Lewis, Yalonda R; Shain, Lara; Quinn, Sandra Crouse; Turner, Katherine; Moore, TimothySexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV, and AIDS disproportionately affect the African American community. In 1999, the rates of gonorrhea and primary and secondary syphilis among African Americans in the United States were approximately 30 times greater than those rates in Whites. Although African Americans represent only 12% of the population nationwide, they constitute 37% of the cumulative AIDS cases. In North Carolina’s Durham County, African Americans accounted for 88% (553) of the HIV cases reported as of December 2000. There remains a demand for prevention efforts that are culturally relevant, incorporating the social norms and values of the African American community. Through the Barber and Beautician STD/HIV Peer Educator Program of the Durham County Health Department’s Project StraighTalk (PS), local barbers and beauticians provide condoms, educational materials, and education to their clients about STDs/HIV. In collaboration with PS, Lewis and Shain performed a needs assessment of the program, including interviews with stylists and clients, to inform program enhancement and materials development. This article describes the needs assessment process, with a specific focus on the challenges of working closely with a community and the lessons learned.