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 A History Of Protecting America: The Epidemic Intelligence Service(CDC Foundation, 2017-04-14) Scalera, DianaItem Racial disparities in Hodgkin's lymphoma: a comprehensive population-based analysis(2012) Evens, A. M.; Antillon, M.; Aschebrook-Kilfoy, B.; Chiu, B. C.- H.Abstract available at publisher's website.Item Mortality from six work-related cancers among African Americans and Latinos(2000) Loomis, Dana; Schulz, MarkAbstract available at publisher's web site.Item Ethnic differences in mortality from insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus among people less than 25 years of age.(1999) Lipton, R; Good, G; Mikhailov, T; Freels, S; Donoghue, EAbstract is available from the publisher's website.Item Race-ethnic disparities in the impact of stroke risk factors: the northern Manhattan stroke study.(2001) Sacco, R L; Boden-Albala, B; Abel, G; Lin, I F; Elkind, M; Hauser, W A; Paik, M C; Shea, SBACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Stroke risk factors have been determined in large part through epidemiological studies in white cohorts; as a result, race-ethnic disparities in stroke incidence and mortality rates remained unexplained. The aim in the present study was to compare the prevalence, OR, and etiological fraction (EF) of stroke risk factors among white, blacks, and Caribbean Hispanics living in the same urban community of northern Manhattan. METHODS: In this population-based incident case-control study, cases (n=688) of first ischemic stroke were prospectively matched 1:2 by age, sex, and race-ethnicity with community controls (n=1156). Risk factors were determined through in-person assessment. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted ORs in each race-ethnic group. Prevalence and multivariate EFs were determined in each race-ethnic group. RESULTS: Hypertension was an independent risk factor for whites (OR 1.8, EF 25%), blacks (OR 2.0, EF 37%), and Caribbean Hispanics (OR 2.1, EF 32%), but greater prevalence led to elevated EFs among blacks and Caribbean Hispanics. Greater prevalence rates of diabetes increased stroke risk in blacks (OR 1.8, EF 14%) and Caribbean Hispanics (OR 2.1 P<0.05, EF 10%) compared with whites (OR 1.0, EF 0%), whereas atrial fibrillation had a greater prevalence and EF for whites (OR 4.4, EF 20%) compared with blacks (OR 1.7, EF 3%) and Caribbean Hispanics (OR 3.0, EF 2%). Coronary artery disease was most important for whites (OR 1.3, EF 16%), followed by Caribbean Hispanics (OR 1.5, EF 6%) and then blacks (OR 1.1, EF 2%). Prevalence of physical inactivity was greater in Caribbean Hispanics, but an elevated EF was found in all groups. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence, OR, and EF for stroke risk factors vary by race-ethnicity. These differences are crucial to the etiology of stroke, as well as to the design and implementation of stroke prevention programs.Item Epi + demos + cracy: linking political systems and priorities to the magnitude of health inequities--evidence, gaps, and a research agenda.(2009) Beckfield, Jason; Krieger, NancyA new focus within both social epidemiology and political sociology investigates how political systems and priorities shape health inequities. To advance-and better integrate-research on political determinants of health inequities, the authors conducted a systematic search of the ISI Web of Knowledge and PubMed databases and identified 45 studies, commencing in 1992, that explicitly and empirically tested, in relation to an a priori political hypothesis, for either 1) changes in the magnitude of health inequities or 2) significant cross-national differences in the magnitude of health inequities. Overall, 84% of the studies focused on the global North, and all clustered around 4 political factors: 1) the transition to a capitalist economy; 2) neoliberal restructuring; 3) welfare states; and 4) political incorporation of subordinated racial/ethnic, indigenous, and gender groups. The evidence suggested that the first 2 factors probably increase health inequities, the third is inconsistently related, and the fourth helps reduce them. In this review, the authors critically summarize these studies' findings, consider methodological limitations, and propose a research agenda-with careful attention to spatiotemporal scale, level, time frame (e.g., life course, historical generation), choice of health outcomes, inclusion of polities, and specification of political mechanisms-to address the enormous gaps in knowledge that were identified.Item Theories for social epidemiology in the 21st century: An ecosocial perspective(2001) Krieger, NancyIn social epidemiology, to speak of theory is simultaneously to speak of society and biology. It is, I will argue, to speak of embodiment. At issue is how we literally incorporate, biologically, the world around us, a world in which we simultaneously are but one biological species among many—and one whose labour and ideas literally have transformed the face of this earth. To conceptualize and elucidate the myriad social and biological processes resulting in embodiment and its manifestation in populations' epidemiological profiles, we need theory. This is because theory helps us structure our ideas, so as to explain causal connections between specified phenomena within and across specified domains by using interrelated sets of ideas whose plausibility can be tested by human action and thought.1–3 Grappling with notions of causation, in turn, raises not only complex philosophical issues but also, in the case of social epidemiology, issues of accountability and agency: simply invoking abstract notions of ‘society’ and disembodied ‘genes’ will not suffice. Instead, the central question becomes: who and what is responsible for population patterns of health, disease, and well-being, as manifested in present, past and changing social inequalities in health?Item Frequency of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias in a Community Outreach Sample of Hispanics(2001) Fitten, L Jaime; Ortiz, Freddy; Ponton, MarcelObejectives: To determine the proportion of Alxheimer's disease (AD) and other dementia types in a community sample of Hispanics. Design: This is a descriptive diagnostic study of a non-random community outreach sample utilizing established criteria for the diagnosis of dementia type. Recruitment involved direct community outreach with diagnostic evaluations conducted at a university-affiliated outpatient clinic. Setting: Hispanic Neuropsychiatric and Memory Research Clinic at the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, California. Participants: One hundred community-dwelling Hispanics age 55 and older without prior diagnosis or treatment of their cognitive systems. Measurements: Each subject underwent a complete medical diagnostic evaluation, in Spanish, including neuropsychological tests, neurological examination, laboratory tests, and brain imaging (computer tomography or magnetic resonance imaging) to establish dementia type. Presence of dementia was established according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) criteria. Diagnosis for probable or possible AD and vascular dementia (VascD) was established using criteria from the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke and the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association for probable AD and by research criteria from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Association Internationale pour la Recherche et l'Enseignement en Neurosciences for VascD, respectively. Frontotemporal dementia was diagnosed using recommendations set forth by the Lund and Manchester groups. Results: Subjects were poor, with low acculturation levels despite long years of U.S. residence. Forty percent of subjects had had undiagnosed cognitive symptoms for 3 or more years. Of those demented, 38.5% had AD and 38.5% met criteria for VascD. The best predictors of VascD were hypertension and cerebrovascular disease, whereas apolipoprotein E4 allele best predicted AD. Other forms of dementia were also present. Twenty percent of the sample was clinically depressed but not demented. Conclusions: In comparison with data from predominantly white populations, our proportion of AD cases was lower and that of VascD cases was considerably higher than anticipated. The percentage of clinically depressed older individuals was also high. These findings could have implications for differential cultural and genetic risk factors for dementia among diverse ethnic/racial groups. Further studies are needed to obtain accurate prevalence estimates of dementing disorders among the different U.S. Hispanic populations.Item Place, Space, and Health: GIS and Epidemiology(2003) Krieger, NancyPlace. Area. Neighborhood. Latitude. Longitude. Distance. These geographic terms are increasingly finding their way into the epidemiologic literature, as advances in geographic information system (GIS) technology make it ever easier to connect spatially referenced physical and social phenomena to population patterns of health, disease, and well-being.1-3 Indeed, links between location and health have long captured the imagination of perceptive observers. Consider the Hippocratic treatise, “Airs, Waters, and Places,” written about 2,400 years ago, which roundly (and rather deterministically) declared: “You will find, as a general rule, that the constitutions and habits of a people follows the nature of the land where they live.”4, p. 168 Early 19th century research decisive to epidemiology’s development as a discipline5 likewise looked to geography to discern etiologic clues.Item NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON ALCOHOL ABUSE AND ALCOHOLISM Strategic Plan and Budget to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities(2002) National Institute on, Alcohol Abuse and AlcoholismNIAAA-supported research reveals that about one-third of Americans do not drink at all and the majority of those who do drink, do so without adverse consequences. But pressing questions still persist. Why do some people exhibit a pathological appetite for alcohol despite serious physical and social problems? Why are some individuals more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol?