Suchergebnisse

Religious institutions have historically been an essential resource in African American communities and can serve as indispensable partners during a public health crisis. The purpose of this perspective is to establish African American churches, mosques, and temples as essential for an immediate, comprehensive, and sustained response to the elevated risk for and spread of COVID-19 among African Americans.Ethn Dis. 2020;30(3):425-428; doi:10.18865/ed.30.3.425

Most social scientists agree that Whites and African Americans exist in different economic, political, and social environments and assert that these "contextual" differences contribute substantially to group differencesin violence and other antisocial outcomes. This article extends these ideas into the empirical realm by using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and structural equation modeling to compare a model of violent delinquency among Black adolescents to one among White adolescents. The results from this comparative analysis illustrate how context leads to racial differences in violent delinquency.

There is growing recognition that the genomic and precision medicine revolution in health care can deepen health disparities. This has produced urgent calls to prioritize inclusion of historically underrepresented populations in research and to make ge­nomic databases more inclusive. Answering the call to address health care disparities in the delivery of genomic and precision medicine requires a consideration of impor­tant, yet understudied, legal issues that have blocked progress. This article introduces a special issue of Ethnicity & Disease, which contains a series of articles that grew out of a public conference to investigate these legal issues and propose solutions.This 2018 conference at Meharry Medical College was part of an NIH-funded project on "LawSeqSM" to evaluate and improve the law of genomics in order to support appro­priate integration of genomics into clinical care. This conference was composed of pre­sentations and interactive sessions designed to specify the top legal barriers to health equity in precision medicine and stimulate potential solutions. This article synthesizes the results of those discussions.Multiple legal barriers limit broad inclusion in genomic research and the development of precision medicine to advance health equity. Problems include inadequate privacy and anti-discrimination protections for re­search participants, lack of health coverage and funding for follow-up care, failure to use law to ensure access to genomic medi­cine, and practices by research sponsors that tolerate and entrench disparities.Analysis of the legal barriers to health equity in precision medicine is essential for progress. Progressive use of law is vital to avoid worsening of health care dispari­ties. Ethn Dis. 2019;29(Suppl 3):623-628; doi:10.18865/ed.29.S3.623

In this volume, authors draw from theoretical and methodological frameworks in the health, social and behavioral sciences to illustrate how poor outcomes among individuals and communities can be linked to the interplay of multiple factors operating at various levels

This case study describes the qualitative data collection and analytic strategies used to understand the psychological and social factors that influence the health behaviors of middle-aged and older African American men. In this case study, we provide the conceptual and methodological rationale driving the decision to conduct thematic analyses of semi-structured individual interviews. We discuss the influence of gender, race/ethnicity, and notions of health to promote healthy behavior among this population. Personal characteristics and psychosocial factors, such as gender, age, and personal values, are critical determinants of health to explicate and incorporate in interventions to improve healthy behavior because they shape where health fits among other life goals and priorities. This research builds on a robust line of formative work by the authors and colleagues emerging from the effort to determine how to most effectively motivate middle-aged and older African American men to eat healthier and be more physically active.

Abstract
Black American adults often report higher rates of obesity and caregiving compared with other racial or ethnic groups. Consequently, many Black American caregivers and care recipients are obese or have obesity-related chronic conditions (e.g., diabetes, hypertension). This study investigated associations between caregiving and obesity among Black Americans, including the role of health behaviors and chronic conditions. The sample included data from 2015 and 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for non-Hispanic Black (NHB) or African American adult caregivers (n = 2,562) and noncaregivers (n = 7,027). The association between obesity (dependent variable) and caregiving status, fruit consumption, vegetable consumption, physical activity, and number of chronic conditions (independent variables) were evaluated using hierarchical binomial logistic regressions. Caregiving, being female, and chronic conditions were associated with higher odds of obesity, while physical activity was associated with lower odds of obesity. Physical activity, diet, and chronic conditions did not account for differences in obesity among caregiving and noncaregiving Black Americans. Increasing understanding of health behaviors and chronic disease burden of NHB caregivers has implications for programs aiming to improve obesity-related outcomes for caregivers and recipients. Future research should investigate multilevel factors that contribute to observed differences.

The development of research training opportunities for investigators from the untapped pool of traditionally underrep­resented racial/ethnic groups has gained intense interest at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The significant and persistent disparity in the likelihood of R01 funding between African American and Whites was highlighted in the groundbreaking 2011 report, Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards. Disparities in funding success were also shown to exist at the institutional level, as 30 institutions receive a disproportion­ate share of federal research funding. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have a dual commitment to edu­cation and research; however, the teaching loads at HBCUs may present challenges for research-oriented faculty. Few research training and mentoring programs have been specifically designed for this group.During 2015 and 2016, we held three conversation cafés with 77 participants in Jackson, Mississippi and Baltimore, Maryland. The purpose of this article is to describe findings from these conversation cafés regarding barriers and facilitators to building robust research careers at HBCUs, and to illustrate how these data were used to adapt the conceptual framework for the NHLBI-funded Obesity Health Disparities (OHD) PRIDE program. Identified barri­ers included teaching and advising loads, infrastructures, and lack of research mentors on campus. The benefit of incorporating re­search into classroom teaching was a noted facilitator. Ethn Dis. 2020;30(1):83-90; doi:10.18865/ed.30.1.83