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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Subject: search.filters.subject.African-American women

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Genetic and Environmental Risks for High Blood Pressure Among African American Mothers and Daughters
    (2009) Taylor, J. Y.; Maddox, R.; Wu, Chun Yi
    Abstract available at publisher's website.
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    Overweight and Depressive Symptoms among African-American Women
    (2000) Siegel, Judith M; Yancey, Antronette K; McCarthy, William J
    Abstract available at publisher's web site.
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    NCI Awards $19.3M for Multisite Investigation of Cancer Disparities
    (2011) UNSPECIFIED
    Why are African-American women more likely than those of European descent to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age, and with poor prognoses? It’s a provocative question, and one that a multidisciplinary team from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University (BU), the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center (UNC) and Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) are coming together to address, supported by a five-year, $19.3 million award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This “team science” effort to better understand a significant health disparity will be led by Co-Principal Investigators Julie Palmer, ScD, from BU, …
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    Health disparities and social determinants of health among African-American women undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI).
    (2008) Kamble, Shital; Boyd, A Suzanne
    This review of minority health describes the existing health disparities, the barriers to healthcare access and utilization, the role of three social determinants of health [i.e., (1) socioeconomic status, (2) education, and (3) stress and/or depression], the existing public-policies; and a health literacy strategy addressing social determinants of health to reduce disparities and improve outcomes in African-American women undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI). Insurance, geography, facility-types, physician referral-bias, and cultural-differences pose as potential significant barriers to healthcare access and utilization. Likewise, lower socioeconomic-status, lack of education, and higher stress and/or depression is associated with adverse health-outcomes for this population. Although the elimination of health disparities is a national priority, comprehensive educational approaches focusing on cross-cultural communication, language barriers, cultural-sensitivity, and cultural-competence are needed.
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    Food, Identity, and African-American Women With Type 2 Diabetes: An Anthropological Perspective
    (2003) Liburd, L. C.
    Dietary practices are deeply rooted in history and culture. Anthropologists have long recognized that food choices and modes of eating reflect many symbolic, affective, familial, and gender-specific associations. African-American women with type 2 diabetes may find that modifying their dietary patterns is particularly challenging given the highly ritualized nature of eating and food selection and the meanings encoded in foods and food-centered events in the African-American experience. When health care providers understand the historical and social shaping of food patterns, they can work in partnership with people with type 2 diabetes to shift cultural norms toward healthy eating.
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    African-American women's perceptions of their most serious health problems.
    (2005) Sadler, Georgia Robins; Escobar, Rita Paola; Ko, Celine Marie; White, Monique; Lee, Shianti; Neal, Tiffany; Gilpin, Elizabeth A
    African Americans experience a disproportionate burden of illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart disease, cancer, cerebrovascular disease and diabetes are the most common causes of mortality among African Americans. Data were gathered from 1,055 African-American women to gain their perspectives of the most serious health problems affecting African-American women and their related knowledge, attitudes and health promoting behaviors. Women listed CDC's top four causes of mortality as their top four most serious health threats. Cancer was reported as a serious health threat by 81% of the participants, whereas heart disease, the most common cause of mortality and a disease amenable to prevention and early intervention, was mentioned by only 31% of the women. Diabetes was reported by 59% of the women and cerebrovascular disease by 52%. As the Health Belief and other theoretical models would predict, awareness of the seriousness of these four disease groups among African-American women was associated with a greater likelihood of adherence for several of the recommended behaviors. Many opportunities exist for raising women's awareness of these four diseases and linking women's growing health awareness with those health promoting behaviors known to reduce morbidity and mortality.
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    ‘‘It’s The Skin You’re In’’: African-American Women Talk About Their Experiences of Racism. An Exploratory Study to Develop Measures of Racism for Birth Outcome Studies
    (2008) Nuru-Jeter, Amani; Dominguez, Tyan Parker; Hammond, Wizdom Powell; Leu, Janxin; Skaff, Marilyn; Egerter, Susan; Jones, Camara P.; Braveman, Paula
    Objectives: Stress due to experiences of racism could contribute to African-American women’s adverse birth outcomes, but systematic efforts to measure relevant experiences among childbearing women have been limited. We explored the racism experiences of childbearing African-American women to inform subsequent development of improved measures for birth outcomes research. Methods: Six focus groups were conducted with a total of 40 socioeconomically diverse African-American women of childbearing age in four northern California cities. Results Women reported experiencing racism (1) throughout the lifecourse, with childhood experiences seeming particularly salient and to have especially enduring effects (2) directly and vicariously, particularly in relation to their children; (3) in interpersonal, institutional, and internalized forms; (4) across different life domains; (5) with active and passive responses; and (6) with pervasive vigilance, anticipating threats to themselves and their children. Conclusions This exploratory study’s findings support the need for measures reflecting the complexity of childbearing African-American women’s racism experiences. In addition to discrete, interpersonal experiences across multiple domains and active/passive responses, which have been measured, birth outcomes research should also measure women’s childhood experiences and their potentially enduring impact, perceptions of institutionalized racism and internalized negative stereotypes, vicarious experiences related to their children, vigilance in anticipating future racism events, as well as the pervasiveness and chronicity of racism exposure, all of which could be sources of ongoing stress with potentially serious implications for birth outcomes. Measures of racism addressing these issues should be developed and formally tested.