Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities

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Annis Golden – Responses from African-American Women To a Community-based Provider of Reproductive Healthcare Services

This project focused on communication between a non-profit community-based provider of reproductive healthcare services and low-income, African-American women in the community. The goals were to identify content and channels for communication by the healthcare provider that would result in increased utilization of the provider’s services by the African-American community. Using interviews and focus groups, with both current users of the health center and non-users, the study documented community members’ perceptions of the healthcare provider, their interpretations of messages used in the provider’s recent communication campaigns, and impediments they perceive to using the provider’s services.

Hayward Horton – Black Preachers and their HIV-AIDS Congregations

The ultimate goal of the project is to improve HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in the Albany Capital District via collaboration, cooperation and coordination. It utilizes University students to organize an annual conference on HIV/AIDS and assist in the development of questions for focus groups and a region-wide survey. It attempts to inform, coordinate and organize the volunteer efforts of Black leadership including clergy, elected officials, medical practitioners, businessmen and women, social policy experts, and the media to meet the challenge of fighting AIDS in their local communities.

Janine Jurkowski – Latinas Screening for Diabetes

Latinas are less likely to obtain risk factor screenings for two of the leading causes of death, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and diabetes, compared to non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black women. Research on the reasons for this is relatively scarce and as a result, current health promotion campaigns targeting these women will be limited in their efficacy. Four 90-minute focus groups were conducted in collaboration with Centro Civico in the community. The focus group questions were guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Health Belief Model, both of which are commonly used in public health research.

Kirsten Davison, Catherine Lawson, & Jeffrey Olson – Minority Physical Activity

This project examines: 1) To examine familial characteristics that impact on children’s physical activity including parent characteristics, parenting behaviors and the family context; (2) To examine community and environmental factors which constrain children’s physical activity behaviors either directly or indirectly through parents’ ability to support their child’s activity; and (3) To examine the moderating effect of race/ethnicity on the associations assessed under specific aims (1) and (2).

Dwight Williams/ Edwina Dorch/ Robert L. Miller, Jr. – Barriers to Black HIV-AIDS Care

The objectives of this research were to determine if compliance with physician prescribed AIDS health care regimens varies with ethnic identity profiles. Additionally, identified key informants are answering open-ended questions related to the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health care services. Following a series of fixed response questionnaires, focus group participants answered a series of open-ended questions designed to reveal structural and systemic barriers and provider behavior.

Sandra Austin - The Voices of Wellness’ Diabetes Self-Management Program for Arbor Hill, West Hill and the South End

The diabetes individual education and partnership development program will consist of Voices of Wellness (VOW) sponsoring this project within four member churches that serve three communities; Arbor Hill, West Hill and the South End of Albany. Each of the four churches will sponsor their own series of eight group workshops (a total of 32) in which a total of 80 participants will learn through educational participatory activities that focus on self-management information, diet and exercise. VOW is also sponsoring this project to support member churches in developing their health ministry and deeper partnerships between, Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Center and community health providers.

Lani Jones - Enhancing Psychosocial Competence Among Drug-Abusing Black Women

A systematic and extensive study of positive mental health paradigms that seeks to enhance the functional capacity of Blacks with co-occurring disorders of drug abuse and psychiatric disabilities will ultimately result in better services, less treatment disparity, and improved system cultural sensitivity. The psychosocial competence framework offers a unique opportunity to work towards these goals, given its potential applicability to African-American service recipients. I propose a program of work that includes the implementation of preliminary pilot studies to examine the effectiveness of a culturally responsive group intervention aimed at reducing depressive symptoms and enhancing psychosocial competence among Black women with drug abuse/dependence disorders.

Kajal Lahiri and Zulkainain Pulungan - Socioeconomic Health Inequality

This study estimates inequality in health for different ethnic/racial groups in the New York adult population and decomposes the inequality into its components. In order to accomplish these aims, we estimate a continuous measure of health for each person that is used to calculate health inequalities between and within various ethnic/racial groups as well as across 10 regions of New York State. We decompose the inequality into its components and estimate two types of health inequality: total health inequality and health inequality related to socioeconomic status.

Blanca Ramos and Anne Fortune – Elderly Hispanics

This study examines the structural and cultural factors that may contribute to service use by Hispanic older adults and their families in a small rural community. The results will inform the development of a culturally relevant health education program that will address the identified structural barriers to service utilization. The study is based on ecological theory, which emphasizes person-environment interactions recognizing contextual factors such as culture and ethnicity as they influence service use and intervention.

Richard Alba and David Strogatz – Minority Prevention Quality Indicators

This study focuses on the measurement of health disparities for the Prevention Quality Indicators (PQI) developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), because minority disparities for any of these indicators are likely to signal inequalities in the access to and use of medical services. The PQI primarily refer to hospitalizations for conditions, such as diabetes complications and dehydration, that can usually be treated successfully by appropriate interventions before the need for hospitalization arises.