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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Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
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    Cardiovascular Disease Control Through Barbershops: Design of a Nationwide Outreach Program
    (2013) Releford , Bill J.; Frencher, Stanley K; Yanchey, Antronette
    Objectives To review the success of barbershops as vehicles for health promotion and outline the Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program (BBHOP), a rapidly growing, replicable model for health promotion through barbershops. Methods BBHOP was established by clinicians in order to enhance community level awareness of and empowerment for cardiometabolic disorders such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. At coordinated events utilizing existing infrastructures as well as culturally and gender-specific health promotion, BBHOP volunteers screen for diabetes and hypertension and reinforce lifestyle recommendations for the prevention of cardiometabolic disorders from the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure. Patrons with abnormal findings are referred to participating physicians or health care facilities. We performed a selective review of the literature in order to place this model for health promotion in the context of previous efforts in barbershops. BBHOP is among several successful programs that have sought to promote health in barbershops. Combining a grassroots organization approach to establishing a broad-based network of volunteers and partner agencies with substantial marketing expertise and media literacy, the BBHOP has screened more than 7000 African American men in nearly 300 barbershops from more than 20 cities across 6 states. Conclusions The BBHOP is an effective method for community level health promotion and referral for cardio-metabolic diseases, especially for AA men, one of the nation’s most vulnerable populations.
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    Report of the State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury on the Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and 36 Yogananda Street, Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012
    (2013) Sedensky III, Stephen J.
    The State’s Attorney’s Office for the Judicial District of Danbury is charged, pursuant to Article IV, Sec. 27 of the Connecticut State Constitution5 and Connecticut General Statutes (C.G.S.) Sec. 51-2766 et seq., with the investigation and prosecution of all criminal offenses occurring within the Judicial District of Danbury. The Connecticut State Police have the responsibility to prevent and detect violations of the law and this State’s Attorney has worked with and relied upon the Connecticut State Police since the incident occurred. The investigation has been local, state and federal agencies, both in and out of Connecticut. While no report is statutorily required of the State’s Attorney once the investigation is complete, it has been the practice of state’s attorneys to issue reports on criminal investigations where there is no arrest and prosecution if the state’s attorney determines that some type of public statement is necessary.7 Given the gravity of the crimes committed on December 14, 2012, a report is in order. The purpose of this report is to identify the person or persons criminally responsible for the twenty-seven homicides that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut,8 on the morning of December 14, 2012, to determine what crimes were committed, and to indicate if there will be any state prosecutions as a result of the incident. Many witnesses to this case have expressed great concern that their identities will be disclosed publicly and make them susceptible to threats or intimidation as a result of their cooperation or connection with the investigation.9 This cooperation has been essential and greatly appreciated. As a result of the witnesses’ concerns, this report will not identify lay witnesses, except where necessary. Consistent with Public Act 13-311,10 exceptions to the state Freedom of Information Act11 and C.G.S. Sec. 17a-101k(a) 12 this report will not list the names of the twenty children killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School, nor will it recite 911 calls made from within the school on that morning or describe information provided by witnesses who were in the classrooms or heard what was occurring in the classrooms. It is not the intent of this report to convey every piece of information contained in the voluminous investigation materials developed by the Connecticut State Police and other law enforcement agencies, but to provide information relevant to the purposes of this report.
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    Individual-based Computational Modeling of Smallpox Epidemic Control Strategies
    (2006) Burke, Donald; Epstein, Joshua; Cummings, Derek; Parker, Jon; Cline, Kenneth; Singa, Ramesh; Charkravarty, Shubha
    In response to concerns about possible bioterrorism, the authors developed an individual-based (or ‘‘agent-based’’) computational model of smallpox epidemic transmission and control. The model explicitly represents an ‘‘artificial society’’ of individual human beings, each implemented as a distinct object, or data structure in a computer program. These agents interact locally with one another in code-represented social units such as homes, workplaces, schools, and hospitals. Over many iterations, these microinteractions generate large-scale macroscopic phenomena of fundamental interest such as the course of an epidemic in space and time. Model variables (incubation periods, clinical disease expression, contagiousness, and physical mobility) were assigned following realistic values agreed on by an advisory group of experts on smallpox. Eight response scenarios were evaluated at two epidemic scales, one being an introduction of ten smallpox cases into a 6,000-person town and the other an introduction of 500 smallpox cases into a 50,000-person town. The modeling exercise showed that contact tracing and vaccination of household, workplace, and school contacts, along with prompt reactive vaccination of hospital workers and isolation of diagnosed cases, could contain smallpox at both epidemic scales examined.
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    Modelling disease outbreaks in realistic urban social networks
    (2004) Eubank, Stephen; Guclu, Hasan; Kumar, V.S. Anil; Marathe, Madhav; Srinivasan, Aravind; Toroczkai, Zoltan; Want, Nan
    Here we present a highly resolved agent-based simulation tool (EpiSims), which combines realistic estimates of population mobility,based on census and land-use data, with parameterized models for simulating the progress of a disease within a host and of transmission between hosts10. The simulation generates a largescale,dynamic contact graph that replaces the differential equations of the classic approach. EpiSims is based on the Transportation Analysis and Simulation System (TRANSIMS) developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which produces estimates of social networks based on the assumption that the transportation infrastructure constrains people’s choices about where and when to perform activities11. TRANSIMS creates a synthetic population endowed with demographics such as age and income, consistent with joint distributions in census data. It then estimates positions and activities of all travellers on a second-by-second basis. For more information on TRANSIMS and its availability, see Supplementary Information. The resulting social network is the best extant estimate of the physical contact patterns among large groups of people—alternative methodologies are limited to physical contacts among hundreds of people or non-physical contacts (such as e-mail or citations) among large groups.
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    If Smallpox Strikes Portland...
    (2005) Barrett, Chris; Eubank, Stephen; Smith, James
    The article looks at "EpiSims," an epidemiology simulation model created to study how social networks spread disease. Public health officials have to make choices that could mean life or death for thousands, even millions, of people, as well as massive economic and social disruption. That is why our group at Los Alamos National Laboratory set out to build EpiSims, the largest individual-based epidemiology simulation model ever created. Tracing the activities and contacts of individual disease victims remains an important tool for modern epidemiologists. After we began developing EpiSims in 2000, smallpox was among the first diseases we chose to model because government officials charged with bioterrorism planning and response were faced with several questions and sometimes conflicting recommendations. INSET: Overview/Simulating Society.
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    Virtual epidemic in a virtual city: simulating the spread of influenza in a US metropolitan area
    (2008) Lee, Bruce; Bedford, Virginia; Roberts, Mark; Carley, Kathleen
    A wide variety of biologic, physiologic, social, economic, and geographic factors may affect the transmission, spread, and impact of influenza. Recent concerns about an impending influenza epidemic have generated a need for predictive computer simulation models to forecast the spread of influenza and the effectiveness of prevention and control strategies. We designed an agent-based computer simulation of a theoretical influenza epidemic in Norfolk, Va, that included extensive city-level details and computer representations of every Norfolk citizen, including their expected behavior and social interactions. The simulation introduced 200 infected cases on November 27, 2002 (day 87), and tracked the progress of the epidemic. On average, the prevalence peaked on day 178 (12.2% of the population). Our model showed a cyclical variation in influenza cases by day of the week with fewer people being exposed on weekends, differences in emergency room and clinic visits by day of the week, an earlier peak in influenza cases, and persistent high prevalence among people age 65 or older and the daily prevalence of infection among health-care workers. The level of detail included in our simulation model made these findings possible. Compared with other existing models, our model has a very extensive and detailed social network, which may be important because individuals with more social interactions and extensive social networks may be more likely to spread influenza. Our simulation may serve as a virtual laboratory to better understand the way different factors and interventions affect the spread of influenza.
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    Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later: In Their Own Words (part 3)
    (2007) Barry, John M.
    The most important thing that people need to understand about the New Orleans area is the interplay between geology and engineering, and their unintended consequences. This involves two issues: how the city became vulnerable and rising sea level. Nature did not make New Orleans vulnerable to hurricanes. Engineers did.
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    Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later: In Their Own Words (part 4)
    (2007) Blakely, Edward
    New Orleans is a city that cherishes its past yet has not taken many steps to design its future. Katrina changed all of that. On August 29th, 2005, New Orleans came face to face with the errors of the past. The levees were inadequate and caused mass flooding. The systems the City had to cope with the problems after the levees broke were not ready. Under Mayor Nagin, the city was just beginning to deal with over 50 years of urban decline and decay.
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    Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later: In Their Own Words (part 2)
    (2007) Shearer, Harry
    I'll cheat enough to say New Orleans needs two things: a true hurricane-flood-protection system and the restoration of Louisiana's coastal wetlands. The Dutch have done it right — a state-of-the art system engineered to a 1-in-10,000-year factor of safety. We've been promised 1-in-100-years, by 2011.
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    Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later: The Threatening Storm
    (2007) GRUNWALD, MICHAEL
    The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2. The city's defenses should have withstood its surges, and if they had we never would have seen the squalor in the Superdome, the desperation on the rooftops, the shocking tableau of the Mardi Gras city underwater for weeks. We never would have heard the comment "Heckuva job, Brownie." The Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) was the scapegoat, but the real culprit was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which bungled the levees that formed the city's man-made defenses and ravaged the wetlands that once formed its natural defenses. Americans were outraged by the government's response, but they still haven't come to grips with the government's responsibility for the catastrophe. They should. Two years after Katrina, the effort to protect coastal Louisiana from storms and restore its vanishing wetlands has become one of the biggest government extravaganzas since the moon mission—and the Army Corps is running the show, with more money and power than ever. Many of the same coastal scientists and engineers who sounded alarms about the vulnerability of New Orleans long before Katrina are warning that the Army Corps is poised to repeat its mistakes—and extend them along the entire Louisiana coast. If you liked Katrina, they say, you'll love what's coming next.