Book Overviews
Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life by
In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good--or equally poor--health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 0309532000Publication Date: 2004
Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities: Promoting Equity and Culturally Responsive Care Across Settings by
Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities offers concrete guidelines and evidence-based best practices for addressing racial inequities and biases in clinical care. Perhaps there is no subject more challenging than the intricacies of race and racism in American culture. More and more, it has become clear that simply teaching facts about cultural differences between racial and ethnic groups is not adequate to achieve cultural competence in clinical care. One must also consider less "visible" constructs--including implicit bias, stereotypes, white privilege, intersectionality, and microaggressions--as potent drivers of behaviors and attitudes. In this edited volume, three leading experts in race, mental health, and contextual behavior science explore the urgent problem of racial inequities and biases, which often prevent people of color from seeking mental health services--leading to poor outcomes if and when they do receive treatment. In this much-needed resource, you'll find evidence-based recommendations for addressing problems at multiple levels, and best practices for compassionately and effectively helping clients across a range of cultural groups and settings. As more and more people gain access to services that have historically been unavailable to them, guidelines for cultural competence in clinical care are needed. Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities offers a comprehensive road map to help you address racial health disparities and improve treatment outcomes in your practice.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 1684031966Publication Date: 2019
Ethnicity, Health and Health Care: Understanding Diversity, Tackling Disadvantage by
This volume considers the implications of national and international social, political, and economic realities for health and health care provision to minority ethnic groups. Addresses continuity and change in debates on ethnicity, health, and health care Considers the implications of national and international social, political, and economic realities for health and health care provision to minority ethnic groups Represents the experiences of settled and new minority ethnic groups, refugees, and asylum seekers across the world Includes international comparisons between Caribbean migrants to the US and UK, the provision of interpreters in general practice and the variations in uptake of disability living allowance across ethnic groups
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781444304404Publication Date: 2008
Health Disparities: Epidemiology, Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Risk Factors and Strategies for Elimination by
In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic risk factors and strategies for the elimination of health disparities. Topics discussed include the cessation and prevention of tobacco use for indigenous populations; understanding the true burden of cancer in American Indian and Alaska Native communities; understanding cardiovascular disparities between Maori and non-Maori indigenous populations in New Zealand; reducing health disparities of culturally-diverse minority populations through transcultural nursing in the home; childhood trauma and health disparities; dismantling racism to improve health equity; the impact of language barriers on healthcare utilization among Hispanic construction workers; and white and minority screenings in colorectal cancer prevention.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781626185715Publication Date: 2013
Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by
Offers an innovative plan to eliminate inequalities in American health care and save the lives they endanger Over 84,000 black and brown lives are needlessly lost each year due to health disparities: the unfair, unjust, and avoidable differences between the quality and quantity of health care provided to Americans who are members of racial and ethnic minorities and care provided to whites. Health disparities have remained stubbornly entrenched in the American health care system--and in Just Medicine Dayna Bowen Matthew finds that they principally arise from unconscious racial and ethnic biases held by physicians, institutional providers, and their patients. Implicit bias is the single most important determinant of health and health care disparities. Because we have missed this fact, the money we spend on training providers to become culturally competent, expanding wellness education programs and community health centers, and even expanding access to health insurance will have only a modest effect on reducing health disparities. We will continue to utterly fail in the effort to eradicate health disparities unless we enact strong, evidence-based legal remedies that accurately address implicit and unintentional forms of discrimination, to replace the weak, tepid, and largely irrelevant legal remedies currently available. Our continued failure to fashion an effective response that purges the effects of implicit bias from American health care, Matthew argues, is unjust and morally untenable. In this book, she unites medical, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology research on implicit bias and health disparities with her own expertise in civil rights and constitutional law. In a time when the health of the entire nation is at risk, it is essential to confront the issues keeping the health care system from providing equal treatment to all.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781479851621Publication Date: 2018- Mortality Trends by Race and Ethnicity Among Adults Aged 25 and Over: United States, 2000-2017 by Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2019
Race, Ethnicity, and Health: A Public Health Reader by
Race, Ethnicity and Health, Second Edition, is a critical selection of hallmark articles that address health disparities in America. It effectively documents the need for equal treatment and equal health status for minorities. Intended as a resource for faculty and students in public health as well as the social sciences, it will be also be valuable to public health administrators and frontline staff who serve diverse racial and ethnic populations. The book brings together the best peer reviewed research literature from the leading scholars and faculty in this growing field, providing a historical and political context for the study of health, race, and ethnicity, with key findings on disparities in access, use, and quality. This volume also examines the role of health care providers in health disparities and discusses the issue of matching patients and doctors by race. New chapters cover: reflections on demographic changes in the US based on the current census; metrics and nomenclature for disparities; theories of genetic basis for disparities; the built environment; residential segregation; environmental health; occupational health; health disparities in integrated communities; Latino health; Asian populations; stress and health; physician/patient relationships; hospital treatment of minorities; the slavery hypertension hypothesis; geographic disparities; and intervention design.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781118086988Publication Date: 2012
Immigrant Health
Culture and Health Disparities: Evaluation of Interventions and Outcomes in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region by
The sister cities of the southwestern United States border are challenged by widespread environmental and health issues and limited access to help. And while different initiatives have been set up to improve health outcomes and lessen inequities in the border region, evaluation data are scarce. Culture and Health Disparitiesnbsp;provides a perspective on U.S.-Mexico border health with an evidence-based guide for conceptualizing, implementing, and evaluating health interventions. Taking into account the unique qualities of border life and their influence on general wellbeing, this important volume offers detailed criteria for creating public health programs that are medically, culturally, and ethically sound. The book identifies gaps in intervention research on major health concerns in the area, relating them to disparity-reduction efforts in the rest of the U.S. and arguing for more relevant means of data gathering and analysis. The author also asserts that progress can be made on both sides of the border despite concurrent social and political problems in the region. Included in the coverage: The border region as a social system. The development of health disparities: a life-course model. A social systems approach to understanding health disparities. A critique of U.S.-Mexico border health interventions. Evaluating interventions to reduce healthcare disparities. Ethical issues in health interventions across cultures and contexts. A text for researchers and practitioners working to promote border health and reduce service inequalities, Culture and Health Disparities asks pertinent questions and provides workable, meaningful answers.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9783319064628Publication Date: 2014
Immigration as a Social Determinant of Health: Proceedings of a Workshop by
Since 1965 the foreign-born population of the United States has swelled from 9.6 million or 5 percent of the population to 45 million or 14 percent in 2015. Today, about one-quarter of the U.S. population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Given the sizable representation of immigrants in the U.S. population, their health is a major influence on the health of the population as a whole. On average, immigrants are healthier than native-born Americans. Yet, immigrants also are subject to the systematic marginalization and discrimination that often lead to the creation of health disparities. To explore the link between immigration and health disparities, the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity held a workshop in Oakland, California, on November 28, 2017. This summary of that workshop highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780309482202Publication Date: 2018
Structured Racism and Privilege
Journals
- American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health ResearchISSN: 1533-7731 (web)
- Ethnicity & DiseaseISSN: 1049-510X (print) / 1945-0826 (web)
Most articles since 2015 available in PubMed Central after six months. - Ethnicity & HealthISSN: 1355-7858 (print) / 1465-3419
Articles available after 18 months. - Journal of Immigrant and Minority HealthISSN: 1557-1912 (print) / 1557-1920 (web)
In Sickness and In Wealth
Books on Specific Topics
Advancing Health Equity for Native American Youth: Workshop Summary by
More than 2 million Americans below age 24 self-identify as being of American Indian or Alaska Native descent. Many of the serious behavioral, emotional, and physical health concerns facing young people today are especially prevalent with Native youth (e.g., depression, violence, and substance abuse). Adolescent Native Americans have death rates two to five times the rate of whites in the same age group because of higher levels of suicide and a variety of risky behaviors (e.g., drug and alcohol use, inconsistent school attendance). Violence, including intentional injuries, homicide, and suicide, accounts for three-quarters of deaths for Native American youth ages 12 to 20. Suicide is the second leading cause of deathâ€"and 2.5 times the national rateâ€"for Native youth ages 15 to 24. Arrayed against these health problems are vital cultural strengths on which Native Americans can draw. At a workshop held in 2012, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, presenters described many of these strengths, including community traditions and beliefs, social support networks, close-knit families, and individual resilience. In May 2014, the Academies held a follow-up workshop titled Advancing Health Equity for Native American Youth. Participants discussed issues related to (1) the visibility of racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care as a national problem, (2) the development of programs and strategies by and for Native and Indigenous communities to reduce disparities and build resilience, and (3) the emergence of supporting Native expertise and leadership. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9780309376143Publication Date: 2016
Black LGBT Health in the United States: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation by
Black LGBT Health in the United States: The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation focuses on the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of health, and considers both risk and resiliency factors for the Black LGBT population. Contributors to this collection intimately understand the associations between health and intersectional anti-Black racism, heterosexism, homonegativity, biphobia, transphobia, and social class. This collection fills a gap in current scholarship by providing information about an array of health issues like cancer, juvenile incarceration, and depression that affect all subpopulations of Black LGBT people, especially Black bisexual-identified women, Black bisexual-identified men, and Black transgender men. This book is recommended for readers interested in psychology, health, gender studies, race studies, social work, and sociology.
Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781498535762Publication Date: 2017
Blood Sugar: Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America by
Why do African Americans have exceptionally high rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity? Is it their genes? Their disease-prone culture? Their poor diets? Such racist explanations for racial inequalities in metabolic health have circulated in medical journals for decades. Blood Sugar analyzes and challenges the ways in which "metabolic syndrome" has become a major biomedical category that medical researchers have created to better understand the risks high blood pressure, blood sugar, body fat, and cholesterol pose to people. An estimated sixty million Americans are well on the way to being diagnosed with it, many of them belonging to people of color. Anthony Ryan Hatch argues that the syndrome represents another, very real crisis and that its advent signals a new form of "colorblind scientific racism"--a repackaging of race within biomedical and genomic research. Examining the cultural discussions and scientific practices that target human metabolism of prescription drugs and sugar by African Americans, he reveals how medical researchers who use metabolic syndrome to address racial inequalities in health have in effect reconstructed race as a fixed, biological, genetic feature of bodies--without incorporating social and economic inequalities into the equation. And just as the causes of metabolic syndrome are framed in racial terms, so are potential drug treatments and nutritional health interventions. The first sustained social and political inquiry of metabolic syndrome, this provocative and timely book is a crucial contribution to the emerging literature on race and medicine. It will engage those who seek to understand how unjust power relations shape population health inequalities and the production of medical knowledge and biotechnologies.
Call Number: RB147 .H36 2016 (Ekstrom)ISBN: 9780816696178Publication Date: 2016- Health of Non-Hispanic Asian Adults: United States, 2010-2014 by Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2016
Inequality, Crime, and Health among African American Males by
Imprisonment, homicide, non-lethal assault and other crime, chronic and infectious disease, substance abuse, suicide, and accidents all contribute to the much wider gap in the community-level sex ratios found among African Americans compared to those observed found among other ethnic and racial groups in the United States. This wide array of causes and correlates of African American male mortality, disability, and confinement suggests an area in need of interdisciplinary inquiry that examines the intersection between public health and public safety. Health analysts and social scientists across many disciplines have studied the disproportionately high levels of disease, disability, premature death, and exposure to the criminal justice system in African Americans communities extensively. To date, there has been little overlap between the diverse literatures even though the very same factors leading to crime and punishment among African American males often contribute to their poor physical and mental health profiles. This book addresses this omission by including chapters exploring the multifaceted dimensions of the varied disadvantages faced by African American males. Authors draw from an array of theoretical and methodological frameworks to illustrate how poor outcomes and sharp disparities among individuals and communities can be linked to the interplay of multiple factors operating at multiple levels. This volume is a useful resource for serious scholars and makers of public policy who seek to understand the causal interplay among economic and racial inequality, gender, crime, punishment, and health outcomes among all African Americans.
Call Number: RC451.5.N4 I547 2019 (Ekstrom)ISBN: 9781786350527Publication Date: 2019
Promoting Health Equity Among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Adolescents: A Practical Guide by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9783319972053Publication Date: 2019- Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the VA Healthcare System: A Systematic Review by Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2007
Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth by
Winner, 2020 Senior Book Prize, given by the Association of Feminist Anthropology Winner, 2020 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize, given by the Society for Medical Anthropology Honorable Mention, 2020 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, given by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology Finalist, 2020 PROSE Award in the Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology category, given by the Association of American Publishers A troubling study of the role that medical racism plays in the lives of black women who have given birth to premature and low birth weight infants Black women have higher rates of premature birth than other women in America. This cannot be simply explained by economic factors, with poorer women lacking resources or access to care. Even professional, middle-class black women are at a much higher risk of premature birth than low-income white women in the United States. Dána-Ain Davis looks into this phenomenon, placing racial differences in birth outcomes into a historical context, revealing that ideas about reproduction and race today have been influenced by the legacy of ideas which developed during the era of slavery. While poor and low-income black women are often the "mascots" of premature birth outcomes, this book focuses on professional black women, who are just as likely to give birth prematurely. Drawing on an impressive array of interviews with nearly fifty mothers, fathers, neonatologists, nurses, midwives, and reproductive justice advocates, Dána-Ain Davis argues that events leading up to an infant's arrival in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and the parents' experiences while they are in the NICU, reveal subtle but pernicious forms of racism that confound the perceived class dynamics that are frequently understood to be a central factor of premature birth. The book argues not only that medical racism persists and must be considered when examining adverse outcomes--as well as upsetting experiences for parents--but also that NICUs and life-saving technologies should not be the only strategies for improving the outcomes for black pregnant women and their babies. Davis makes the case for other avenues, such as community-based birthing projects, doulas, and midwives, that support women during pregnancy and labor are just as important and effective in avoiding premature births and mortality.
Call Number: RA564.86 .D38 2019 (Ekstrom)ISBN: 9781479812271Publication Date: 2019- Understanding Racial and Ethnic Disparities in U.S. Infant Mortality Rates by Call Number: EbookPublication Date: 2011
Racism and Maternal Health
Web Resources
- Advancing Racial Equity Webinar SeriesWebinar series from the American Public Health Association. Webinars may lack recordings but have transcripts and slides available.
- CDC Office of Minority Health and Health Equity PublicationsCitations to articles from researchers at the CDC's Office of Minority Health and Health Equity.
- Disparities in Infectious DiseaseInformation from the CDC on racial and ethnic disparities related to HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STDs, and tuberculosis.
- Health, United States, 2015 With Special Feature on Racial and Ethnic Health DisparitiesData from the CDC about racial and ethnic health disparities.
- HHS Office of Minority Health Knowledge CenterSearchable online catalog of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health's Knowledge Center. Contains over 70,000 items in multiple formats, as well as patient education materials in more than 40 languages.
- Hispanic Community Health Study Data BookData on a variety of health topics in Latinx communities from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
- The Impact of Racism on the Health and Well-Being of the NationWebinar series from the American Public Health Association.
- Latino Health DisparitiesOverview of health disparities experienced by Latinx people in the United States from the League of United Latin American Citizens.
- Native American and Alaska Native Health DisparitiesOverview of health disparities experienced by Indigenous people in the United States from the Indian Health Service.
Key Articles
- Discrimination and Hypertension Risk Among African Americans in the Jackson Heart StudyForde AT, Sims M, Muntner P, Lewis T, Onwuka A, Moore K, Diez Roux AV. Discrimination and hypertension risk among African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study. Hypertension. 2020 Sep; 76(3):715-723. DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.119.14492.
- A Life Course Perspective on How Racism May Be Related to Health InequitiesGee GC, Walsemann KM, Brondolo E. A life course perspective on how racism may be related to health inequities. Am J Public Health. 2012 May; 102(5):967-974.
- Racial Disparities in Age-Specific Mortality Among Black or African AmericansCunningham TJ, Croft JB, Liu Y, Lu H, Eke PI, Giles WH. Vital signs: Racial disparities in age-specific mortality among Blacks or African Americans - United States, 199-2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2017 May; 66(17):444-456. DOI: 10.15585/mmwr.mm6617e1.
- Racial Residential Segregation: A Fundamental Cause of Racial Disparities in HealthWilliams DR, Collins C. Racial residential segregation: A fundamental cause of racial disparities in health. Public Health Rep. 2001 Sep-Oct; 116(5):404-416. DOI: 10.1093/phr/116.5.404.
- Racism, African American Women, and Their Sexual and Reproductive HealthPrather C, Fuller TR, Jeffries WL IV, Marshall KJ, Howell AV, Belyue-Umole A, King W. Racism, African American women, and their sexual and reproductive health: A review of historical and contemporary evidence and implications for health equity. Health Equity. 2018 Sep; 2(1):249-259. DOI: 10.1089/heq.2017.0045.
- Structural Racism and Health InequitiesGee GC, Ford CL. Structural racism and health inequities: Old issues, new directions. Du Bois Rev. 2011 Apr; 8(1):115-132. DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X11000130.
- Structural Racism and Health Inequities in the USA: Evidence and InterventionsBailey ZD, Krieger N, Agénor M, Graves J, Linos N, Bassett MT. Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: Evidence and interventions. Lancet. 2017 Apr; 389(10077):1453-1463. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30569-X.