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.
Browse
135 results
Search Results
Item Qualitative Systematic Review of Barber-Administered Health Education, Promotion, Screening and Outreach Programs in African-American Communities(2014) Luque, J. S.; Ross, Levi; Gwede, Clement K.The barbershop has been portrayed as a culturally appropriate venue for reaching Black men with health information and preventive health screenings to overcome institutional and socio-cultural barriers. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the peer-reviewed literature on barbershop-based health programs to provide lessons learned for researchers and practitioners. A literature search was conducted to identify articles for the review. Inclusion criteria specified that studies had to be based in the United States and reported about research where barbers were either being assessed for the feasibility of their participation or recruited to administer health education/screening outreach or research activities. The literature search produced 901 unique bibliographic records from peer-reviewed publications. After eliminating articles not meeting the inclusion criteria, 35 articles remained for full-text review. The final article sample consisted of 16 articles for complete abstraction to assess characteristics of studies, role and training of barbers, outcomes targeted, effectiveness, and key findings. All barbershop-based studies reviewed targeted Black men in urban settings. Common study designs were cross-sectional studies, feasibility studies, needs assessments, and one-shot case studies. Barber administered interventions addressed primarily prostate cancer and hypertension, and barbers provided health education, screening, and referrals to health care. Nonintervention studies focused mostly on surveying or interviewing barbers for assessing the feasibility of future interventions. Barbershops are a culturally appropriate venue for disseminating health education materials in both print and media formats. Barbershops are also acceptable venues for training barbers to conduct education and screening. In studies where barbers received training, their knowledge of various health conditions increased significantly and knowledge gains were sustained over time. They were also able to increase knowledge and promote positive health behaviors among their customers, but these outcomes were variable and not consistently documented.Item Strategies for Recruiting African American Men into Prostate Cancer Screening Studies(Nursing Research, 2010) Jones, Randy; Steeves, Richard; Williams, IshanBackground Recruitment for research and clinical trials continues to be challenging. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men and disproportionately affects African American men; thus, effective recruitment strategies are essential for this population. Objectives To focus on innovative and effective recruitment strategies for research on prostate cancer with minorities. Methods A systematic description is provided of the recruitment efforts for a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study of African American men's experiences in decision-making on whether or not to have a prostate cancer screening. Results Seventeen African American men were enrolled from rural Central Virginia. Recruiting strategies were targeted on places where African American men usually are found, but that are rarely used for recruitment: barbershops, community health centers, and churches. Word-of-mouth was used also, and the majority of the participants (n = 11) were reached through this method. Discussion Recruitment efforts have been noted to be particularly challenging among minorities, for numerous reasons. Making minority recruitment a priority in any research or clinical trial is essential in gaining a representative sample. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool that is often forgotten, but should be looked at in further detail.Item Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Disease(1995) Link, Bruce G.; Phelan, JoOver the last several decades, epidemiological studies have been enormously successful in identifying risk factors for major diseases. However, most of this research has focused attention on risk factors that are relatively proximal causes of disease such as diet, cholesterol level, exercise and the like. We question the emphasis on such individually-based risk factors and argue that greater attention must be paid to basic social conditions if health reform is to have its maximum effect in the time ahead. There are two reasons for this claim. First we argue that individually-based risk factors must be contextualized, by examining what puts people at risk of risks, if we are to craft effective interventions and improve the nation's health. Second, we argue that social factors such as socioeconomic status and social support are likely 'fundamental causes" of disease that, because they embody access to important resources, affect multiple disease outcomes throughmultiple mechanisms, and consequently maintain an association with disease even when intervening mechanisms change. Without careful attention to these possibilities, we run the risk of imposing individually-based intervention strategies that are ineffective and of missing opportunities to adopt broad-based societal interventions that could produce substantial health benefits for our citizensItem Understanding high-risk behavior among non-dominant minorities: A social resistance framework(2011) Factor, Roni; Kawachi, Ichiro; Williams, David R.Item Is neighborhood racial/ethnic composition associated with depressive symptoms? The multi-ethnic study of atherosclerosis(2010) Mair, Christina; Diez Roux, Ana V.; Osypuk, Theresa L.; Rapp, Stephen R.; Seeman, Teresa; Watson, Karol E.Item Transforming Health in Prince George's County, Maryland: A Public Health Impact Study(2012) UNSPECIFIEDExecutive Summary and Technical Reports and Supporting Documents Section II of the Public Health Impact Study of Prince George’s County report includes technical reports that document the methods, findings, limitations and a summary for each of the seven study components. We also include copies of the study instruments, where appropriate. While the findings of these study components formed the basis for the integrated answers to the study’s five framing questions, the technical reports include more detailed data than was possible to include in Section I, and also provide insights for the study as a whole.Item Making the Connection Between Zoning and Health Disparities(2012) Rossen, Lauren M.; Pollack, Keshia M.Abstract available at publisher's website.Item THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND KIDNEY FUNCTION/CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE(2010) Hawkins, MarquisINTRODUCTION: Chronic kidney disease is a serious public health concern because of the large physical and economic burden on society. Because of this large burden, it is important to determine what factors are associated with the development and progression of the disease, especially in early stages. Physical activity has been shown to be related to many risk factors for CKD; however, few studies have assessed its direct relationship with kidney function. METHODS: Using data from NHANES, a nationally representative U.S., we described physical activity by various intensities, gender and race/ethnicity (paper 1). We then investigated the cross-sectional relationship between varying intensities of objectively assessed physical activity and kidney function in the same population (paper 2). Using data from the Strong Heart Study, an American Indian cohort at high risk for CKD, we investigated the relationship between subjectively assessed physical activity with kidney function prospectively (paper 3). RESULTS: We showed that Mexican Americans were more physically active than whites and blacks at all levels of intensity, in contrast to findings using questionnaires. We also confirmed that light intensity activity made the largest contribution to total movement. In paper 2, we showed that objectively assessed light intensity physical activity was independently associated with kidney function while objectively and subjectively assessed moderate to vigorous physical activity was not. In paper 3 we showed that physical inactivity was associated with rapid declines and kidney THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND KIDNEY FUNCTION/CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE Marquis Hawkins, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2010 vi function over a five year period. Physical inactivity was also associated with development of kidney damage over a ten year period. PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE: The results of these three papers show that physical activity of various intensities are related to kidney function and that physical activity may also preserve kidney function over time in a high risk population. Previous recommendations for physical activity and health were unable to discuss the benefits of physical activity on kidney function because the paucity of evidence. This study is of public health significance because it adds to the growing body of evidence for which we can base our future recommendations.Item Racial/Ethnic Differences in Hormonally-Active Hair Product Use: A Plausible Risk Factor for Health Disparities(2011) James-Todd, Tamarra; Senie, Ruby; Terry, Mary BethAbstract available at publisher's website.Item Breastfeeding Among Minority Women: Moving From Risk Factors to Interventions(2012) Chapman, Donna J.; Pérez-Escamilla, RafaelAbstract available at publisher's website.