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 Can universal coverage eliminate health disparities? Reversal of disparate injury outcomes in elderly insured minorities(2012) Ramirez, Michelle; Chang, David C.; Rogers, Selwyn O.; Yu, Peter T.; Easterlin, Molly; Coimbra, Raul; Kobayashi, LeslieAbstract available at publisher's website.Item Recruitment and Retention of Minority Women in Cancer Screening, Prevention, and Treatment Trials(2000) Brown, Diane R; Fouad, Mona N; Basen-Engquist, Karen; Tortolero-Luna, GuillermoAbstract available at publisher's web site.Item Aerobic exercise improves cardiorespiratory fitness but does not reduce blood pressure in prehypertensive African American women.(2007) Stephens, Quiona; Kirby, Timothy; Buckworth, Janet; Devor, Steven; Hamlin, RobertTen weeks of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, three times a week at 70% VO2 peak, is a sufficient stimulus to improve cardiorespiratory fitness and workload achieved. However, this exercise regimen was not adequate in eliciting a simultaneous reduction in systolic, diastolic, or mean arterial blood pressure in this cohort of prehypertensive African American women. Additional studies are needed to determine specific exercise protocols that would be effective in lowering blood pressure in various populations. These exercise protocols may vary across ethnicity, sex, and disease status.Item Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Pediatric Mental Health(2010) Alegria, Margarita; Vallas, Melissa; Pumariega, Andres J.Abstract available at publisher's web site.Item A National Dialogue on Genetics and Minority Issues(1998) Mittman, Ilana Suez; Secundy, Marian GrayThis paper summarizes two-day deliberations on issues of genetic services and diverse communities, attended by experts representing genetic consumers, representatives of diverse communities and genetic providers/scientists. The discussions held in round table dialogue sessions focused on the following subjects: Inclusion of ethnic/racial minorities in bio-medical research; ensuring minority access to genetic services; consumer protection in genetic testing and empowering minority communities to take part in genetic research and service provision. The discussions are vividly illustrated by the presentation of numerous quotes obtained from transcripts of the sessions held. The paper concludes with useful recommendations for genetic providers, educators, scientists, and policy makers on the issues of involving diverse communities in the various aspects of the new genetics.Item New Evidence Regarding Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Mental Health: Policy Implications(2008) McGuire, Thomas G.; Miranda, JeanneMinorities have, in general, equal or better mental health than white Americans, yet they suffer from disparities in mental health care. This paper reviews the evidence for mental health and mental health care disparities, comparing them to patterns in health. Strategies for addressing disparities in health care, such as improving access to and quality of care, should also work to eliminate mental health care disparities. In addition, a diverse mental health workforce, as well as provider and patient education, are important to eliminating mental health care disparities.Item Are Racial and Ethnic Minorities Less Willing to Participate in Health Research?(2005) Wendler, David; Kington, Raynard; Madans, Jennifer; Wye, Gretchen Van; Christ-Schmidt, Heidi; Pratt, Laura A.; Brawley, Otis W.; Gross, Cary P.; Emanuel, EzekielBackground: It is widely claimed that racial and ethnic minorities, especially in the US,are less willing than non-minority individuals to participate in health research. Yet,there is a paucity of empirical data to substantiate this claim. Methods and Findings: We performed a comprehensive literature search to identify all puublished health research studies that report consent rates by race or ethnicity. We found 20 health research studies that reported consent rates by race or ethnicity. These 20 studies reported the enrollment decisions of over 70,000 individuals for a broad range of research,from interviews to drug treatment to surgical trials. Eighteen of the twenty studies were single-site studies conducted exclusively in the US or multi-site studies where the majority of sites (i.e., at least 2/3) were in the US. Of the remaining two studies, the Concorde study was conducted at 74 sites in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, while the Delta study was conducted at 152 sites in Europe and 23 sites in Australia and New Zealand. For the three interview or non-intervention studies, African-Americans had a nonsignificantly lower overall consent rate than non-Hispanic whites (82.2% versus 83.5%; odds ratio [OR] ¼ 0.92; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.84–1.02). For these same three studies, Hispanics had a nonsignificantly higher overall consent rate than non-Hispanic whites (86.1% versus 83.5%; OR ¼ 1.37; 95% CI 0.94–1.98). For the ten clinical intervention studies, African-Americans’ overall consent rate was nonsignificantly higher than that of non-Hispanic whites (45.3% versus 41.8%; OR¼1.06; 95% CI 0.78–1.45). For these same ten studies, Hispanics had a statistically significant higher overall consent rate than non-Hispanic whites (55.9% versus 41.8%; OR¼1.33; 95% CI 1.08–1.65). For the seven surgery trials, which report all minority groups together, minorities as a group had a nonsignificantly higher overall consent rate than non-Hispanic whites (65.8% versus 47.8%; OR ¼ 1.26; 95% CI 0.89–1.77). Given the preponderance of US sites, the vast majority of these individuals from minority groups were African-Americans or Hispanics from the US. Conclusions We found very small differences in the willingness of minorities, most of whom were African-Americans and Hispanics in the US, to participate in health research compared to non-Hispanic whites. These findings, based on the research enrollment decisions of over 70,000 individuals, the vast majority from the US, suggest that racial and ethnic minorities in the US are as willing as non-Hispanic whites to participate in health research. Hence, efforts to increase minority participation in health research should focus on ensuring access to health research for all groups, rather than changing minority attitudes.Item Why Are Ethnic Minorities Under- Represented in US Research Studies?(2006) Sheikh, AzizMost economically developed nations are now multiethnic,and, given current demographic trends, there is reason to believe that societies will continue to become more ethnically and culturally diverse. For example, the 1991 and 2001 UK censuses, which both included a mandatory question on ethnic identity, revealed that the proportion of the UK population classifying themselves as belonging to a non-white minority ethnic group increased by 53% over this 10-year period, from 3 million to 4.6 million (or 7.9% of the UK population)[1]. We have more than two decades of research highlighting ethnic inequalities for a range of long-term disorders [2], such as asthma (Table 1), but despite the policy imperative to improve health outcomes for marginalised populations, there has, unfortunately, been little progress toward this end [3,4]. Perversely, data indicate that for some conditions these health inequalities may actually be increasing.Item Reemerging Nutritional Rickets: A historical perspective(2005) Rajakumar, K; Thomas, SRecent case reports highlight the resurgence of rickets in certain groups of breastfed infants. Infants residing in the North, irrespective of skin color, and dark-skinned African American infants residing anywhere in the United States are most vulnerable to nutritional rickets if they are exclusively breastfed past age 6 months without vitamin D supplementation. At the turn of the 20th century, rickets was nearly universal among African American infants living in the North. The discovery of vitamin D, the initiation of public health campaigns to fortify infant foods with vitamin D, and the supplementation of vitamin D to breastfed infants were responsible for overcoming the rickets scourge. We review a classic nutritional study by Alfred F. Hess, one of the greatest clinical nutritional researchers of the early 20th century, in the context of the resurgence of rickets, especially among dark-skinned infants. The Columbus Hill district, a black community of New York, NY, served as the setting for the study. Sixty-five infants (aged 1-17 months) entered a 6-month open-label trial of daily cod liver oil therapy. Participants were assessed for signs of rickets at recruitment and at 2, 4, and 6 months. Cod liver oil prevented the development of rickets in 34 (92%) of 37 infants treated for 6 months and in 7 (58%) of 12 treated for 4 months. Of the 16 infants who did not take the prescribed treatment, rickets progressed unremittingly in 15. Hess translated his success into a public health campaign leading to the development of the first rickets clinic in 1917. This was the first step in the conquest of the rickets epidemic of the early 20th century.