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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Author: search.filters.author.Thomas, Stephen B.Subject: search.filters.subject.Health Equity

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    The National Bioethics Research Infrastructure Initiative: Building Trust Between Minorities and Researchers.
    (University of Maryland Center for Health Equity, 2012) Thomas, Stephen B.
    This video short is one product of our Building Trust between Minorities and Researchers training curriculum. This work is made possible through a grant from the NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. For more information visit www.healthequity.umd.edu
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    Toward a fourth generation of disparities research to achieve health equity
    (2011) Thomas, Stephen B.; Quinn, Sandra Crouse; Butler, James; Fryer, Craig S.; Garza, Mary A.
    Achieving health equity, driven by the elimination of health disparities, is a goal of Healthy People 2020. In recent decades, the improvement in health status has been remarkable for the U.S. population as a whole. However, racial and ethnic minority populations continue to lag behind whites with a quality of life diminished by illness from preventable chronic diseases and a life span cut short by premature death. We examine a conceptual framework of three generations of health disparities research to understand (a) data trends, (b) factors driving disparities, and (c) solutions for closing the gap. We propose a new, fourth generation of research grounded in public health critical race praxis, utilizing comprehensive interventions to address race, racism, and structural inequalities and advancing evaluation methods to foster our ability to eliminate disparities. This new generation demands that we address the researcher's own biases as part of the research process.
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    Racial Differences in Parents' Distrust of Medicine and Research
    (2009) Rajakumar, Kumaravel; Thomas, Stephen B.; Musa, Donald; Almario, Donna; Garza, Mary A.
    Objective To assess and compare the attitudes and trust that African American and white parents have toward their children participating in research. Design Self-administered, cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of parents. Setting Primary Care Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh from August 2004 through April 2005. Participants One hundred ninety parents (140 African American and 50 white parents). Outcome Measure Parental distrust of medical research as measured by a summative score of distrusting responses to 8 questions assessing trust in research. Results African American parents had significantly greater distrust than white parents (67% vs 50%, P = .04). Education was also associated with having significantly greater distrust (74% of those with
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    African Americans' views on research and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study
    (2001) Freimuth, Vicki S.; Quinn, Sandra Crouse; Thomas, Stephen B.; Cole, Galen; Zook, Eric; Duncan, Ted
    The participation of African Americans in clinical and public health research is essential. However, for a multitude of reasons, participation is low in many research studies. This article reviews the literature that substantiates barriers to participation and the legacy of past abuses of human subjects through research. The article then reports the results of seven focus groups with 60 African Americans in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Atlanta during the winter of 1997. In order to improve recruitment and retention in research, the focus group study examined knowledge of and attitudes toward medical research, knowledge of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and reactions to the Home Box Office production, Miss Evers' Boys, a fictionalized version of the Tuskegee Study, that premiered in February, 1997. The study found that accurate knowledge about research was limited; lack of understanding and trust of informed consent procedures was problematic; and distrust of researchers posed a substantial barrier to recruitment. Additionally, the study found that, in general, participants believed that research was important, but they clearly distinguished between types of research they would be willing to consider participating in and their motivations for doing so.
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    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.
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    Historical and Current Policy Efforts to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in the US. Future Opportunities for Public Health Education Research
    (2006) Thomas, Stephen B.; Benjamin, Georges C.; Almario, Donna; Lathan, Monica J.
    In the summer of 2005, the Society for Public Health Education convened a meeting, Health Disparities and Social Inequities, with the task of setting the minority health disparities research agenda for public health educators. The article provides a history of minority health efforts beginning with the Negro Health Improvement Week in 1915 and an overview of National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) current 5-year strategic research plan to eliminate health disparities. The plan’s goals represent a significant investment in minority health research and the emergence of NIH as the leading federal agency funding health disparity research. Understanding the history of minority health efforts and current health disparity research offers a perspective that will help guide public health educators in reaching the Healthy People 2010 goal of eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities.