American journal of preventive medicine
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This study examines 10 culturally relevant indices of physical, psychological, and social function in order to specify and quantify their influence on the multidimensional functional health of low-income Black older women who have a medical diagnosis of osteoarthritis and no known history of coexisting medical conditions that would cause severe debilitation. Using a non-experimental, correlational design, cross-sectional data were obtained in individual face-to-face interviews. A nonprobability sample of 100 low-income, community-living Black older female participants of two local senior centers were interviewed for analysis. ⋯ This combination of variables explained 45% of the variance in functional health. Depression was highly correlated with other predictors and explained the largest amount of variance. Findings emphasize the need for enhanced education of providers to stimulate development of health promotion/disease prevention programs that will decrease the occurrence and effects of depression, joint pathology, and physical immobility, thereby improving health-related outcomes for Black older women who have osteoarthritis.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Evaluation of a hospital-based youth violence intervention.
To decrease adolescent morbidity and mortality and improve the quality of life, a violence-prevention consultation is offered to hospitalized victims of nondomestic violence. The context is a violence-prevention team approach to patient assessment, treatment, and follow-up. Psychoeducational counseling emphasizes the individual through a cognitive behavioral approach and also recognizes the individual in the proximal social setting through referrals to community resources. ⋯ No statistically significant differences between intervention subjects and nonintervention controls in terms of baseline variables have been observed. For inner-city adolescent victims of violent assaults, a hospital-based intervention offers a unique opportunity for reduction of the incidence of reinjury. We describe the elements of the intervention, including the theoretical basis and implementation; detail the overall evaluation design including modifications; and present preliminary analyses of baseline data.
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Previously published reports strongly suggest that being overweight is a risk factor for coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, gallstones, and osteoarthritis in women. Substantial health care and medication costs are associated with these chronic health conditions. We used an incidence-based analysis to estimate the excess costs associated with women maintaining an overweight status during the 25-year period from age 40 to 65 years. ⋯ The results of this study indicate that an estimated $16 billion will be spent during the next 25 years treating health outcomes associated with overweight in middle-aged women in the United States. Thus, a substantial health burden is associated with the increasing prevalence of overweight women in the United States. Preventing excess coronary heart disease, gall-stones, osteoarthritis, hypertension, and diabetes through prevention of weight gain, particularly among reproductive-aged women, may be a cost-effective strategy.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Attributional bias and reactive aggression.
This article looks at a cognitive behavioral intervention designed to reduce minority youths' (Latino and African-American boys) levels of reactive peer-directed aggression. The BrainPower Program trains aggressive boys to recognize accidental causation in ambiguous interactions with peers. The objective of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of this attribution retraining program in reducing levels of reactive, peer-directed aggression. ⋯ The baseline data indicated that students who were evenly distributed across the four sites were not significantly different on the baseline indicators: student cognitions, teacher perceptions of behavior, and student suspension rates. Substantial evidence has shown that aggressive boys tend to attribute hostile intentions to peers, often resulting in inappropriate retaliatory aggression. The BrainPower Program was designed to determine whether psychoeducational strategies in a school context are effective in reducing attributional bias and whether such reductions significantly reduce aggressive behavior.
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We examine racial and ethnic variations in use of screening mammography. We first review recent literature on Blacks', Hispanics', and non-Hispanic Whites' mammography use. Here we extend that body of literature through use of a comprehensive national database and discussion of the implications of race- and nonrace-stratified mammography modeling. ⋯ Researchers must give explicit attention, both empirically and methodologically, to how race and ethnicity interact with sociodemographic factors, health practices, and access to health care to refine our understanding of barriers to breast cancer screening. Common barriers to routine screening may be perceived differently by Black, Hispanic, and White women and may contribute to underuse of mammography in distinct ways.