Racial and Ethnic Differences in Mental Illness Stigma and Discrimination Among Californians Experiencing Mental Health Challenges.

Reports racial and ethnic differences on the California Well-Being Survey, a surveillance tool that tracks mental illness stigma and discrimination among a sample of California adults experiencing psychological distress.

Investment in Social Marketing Campaign to Reduce Stigma and Discrimination Associated with Mental Illness Yields Positive Economic Benefits to California.

This article examines the potential impact of the California Mental Health Services Authority's stigma and discrimination reduction social marketing campaign on the use of adult behavioral health services, and it estimates the benefit-cost ratios.

Impact of Autism Navigator on Access to Services.

Objective: To determine whether access to an Autism Patient Navigator (APN) for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at <48 months of age would be useful and lead to more appointments with needed services.

Method: Participants included parents of 39 children diagnosed with ASD in a multidisciplinary clinic. After diagnosis, the patients were randomized to 4 groups: Medicaid early (n = 9) or late support (n = 9) and non-Medicaid early (n = 11) or late support (n = 10).

A Community-Based Exercise and Support Group Program in African-American Breast Cancer Survivors (ABCs).

African-American (AA) women have higher rates of breast cancer (BCa) mortality than Caucasian women, and a recent study using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry suggests that this disparity may be due, in part, to the poorer health status of AAs at diagnosis and not treatment related issues. Randomized controlled trials involving supervised aerobic and resistance exercise have shown improved body composition and improvement in cancer-related biomarkers in BCa patients and may lead to improved recurrence and survival rates; however, most trials have focused on Caucasians and many have been conducted in academic- and clinic-based settings. We evaluated the feasibility of conducting a 20-week, supervised, resistance training, group exercise intervention coupled with a support group and home walking program utilizing facilities and personnel at a community cancer support center (The Gathering Place, Beachwood, Ohio) in AA Stage I-III BCa survivors who were within 12 months of completing treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, and/or breast irradiation); and, evaluated the potential effects of this intervention on physical measures and cancer-related biomarkers.

Safety of probiotics used to reduce risk and prevent or treat disease.

Objectives: To catalog what is known about the safety of interventions containing Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Saccharomyces, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and/or Bacillus strains used as probiotic agents in research to reduce the risk of, prevent, or treat disease.

Data Sources: We searched 12 electronic databases, references of included studies, and pertinent reviews for studies addressing the safety of probiotics from database inception to August 2010 without language restriction.

Review Methods: We identified intervention studies on probiotics that reported the presence or absence of adverse health outcomes in human participants, without restriction by study design, participant type, or clinical field.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health-related quality of life: findings from a bilingual inner-city patient population.

Objective: To determine whether completing a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program would affect the general health, health-related quality of life, sleep quality, and family harmony of Spanish- and English-speaking medical patients at an inner-city health center.

Materials And Methods: An intervention group of 68 patients (48 Spanish-speaking and 20 English-speaking) completed the SF-36 Health Survey and two additional questions about sleep quality and family harmony before and after completing the 8-week MBSR program. A comparison group of 18 Spanish-speaking patients who received no intervention completed the same questionnaire at the same intervals.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction and healthcare utilization in the inner city: preliminary findings.

Context: Research on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has focused on measuring symptom reduction in middle-class and working-class populations. The present study examined inner-city patients' healthcare utilization before and after an MBSR intervention.

Objective: To determine whether completion of an MBSR program resulted in changes in healthcare utilization in an inner-city population.