Utilization of driving and other transportation rehabilitation in the National Health and Aging Trends Study.

Background: As people age, their mobility begins to decrease. In an effort to maintain mobility, this population can seek out rehabilitation services with the goal of improving their driving. However, it is unclear who has sought out rehabilitation for this purpose.

Lifecourse Socioeconomic Position and Racial Disparities in BMI Trajectories among Black and White Women: Exploring Cohort Effects in the Americans Changing Lives' Study.

Introduction: Few studies have analyzed the cohort effects of lifecourse socioeconomic position (SEP) on racial disparities in body mass index (BMI) trajectories. We assessed the contribution of lifecourse SEP on racial differences in BMI trajectories among two different age cohorts of women.

Methods: Four waves of the Americans' Changing Lives' study (1986-2002) were used to compute BMI trajectories for 2194 Black and White women.

Lifecourse socioeconomic position and 16 year body mass index trajectories: differences by race and sex.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between lifecourse socioeconomic position (SEP) and changes in body mass index (BMI), and assess disparities in these associations across racial/ethnic groups.

Methods: With longitudinal data from 4 waves of the Americans' Changing Lives Study (1986-2002), we employed mixed-effects modeling to estimate BMI trajectories for 1174 Blacks and 2323 White adults. We also estimated associations between these trajectories and lifecourse SEP variables, including father's education, perceived childhood SEP, own education, income, wealth, and financial security.

Profile of diabetes mellitus among immigrants from Guyana: epidemiology and implications for community action.

Objective: Prompted by anecdotal evidence of a higher rate of type 2 diabetes, we set out to investigate the prevalence of diabetes, its risk factors, and co-morbidities among immigrant Guyanese patients being treated in a family medicine health center in Schenectady, New York.

Methods: Patients were ascertained from a registration database of all patients aged > or = 30 years who were treated from 2004 to 2006. We then conducted a detailed retrospective chart review of all Guyanese, Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic patients with diabetes and randomly selected non-diabetic controls.

Associations among social capital, parenting for active lifestyles, and youth physical activity in rural families living in upstate New York.

While emerging research supports a positive relationship between social capital and youth physical activity (PA), few studies have examined possible mechanisms explaining this relationship and no studies have focused on rural youth. In this study, we examined parents' support of children's PA as an intermediary factor linking social capital and youth PA in a largely rural cross sectional sample of American children aged 6- to 19-years and their parents/guardians (N=767 families) living in upstate New York. Parents completed a self-administered survey assessing demographic factors, perceived social capital, support for children's PA, and children's PA including time spent outdoors and days per week of sufficient PA.

Major life events as potential triggers of sudden cardiac arrest.

Background: We investigated the risk of sudden cardiac arrest in association with the recent loss of, or separation from, a family member or friend.

Methods: Our case-crossover study included 490 apparently healthy married residents of King County, Washington, who suffered sudden cardiac arrest between 1988 and 2005. We compared exposure to spouse-reported family/friend events occurring ≤ 1 month before sudden cardiac arrest with events occurring in the previous 5 months.

Enhancing community capacity to support physical activity: the development of a community-based indoor-outdoor walking program.

The University at Albany Prevention Research Center, guided by a needs assessment in two underserved communities (one urban, one rural), initiated a pilot project that opened a public school for community walking in a rural setting. This study examined a 9-week program for potential barriers, benefits, influential factors, and the physical activity levels of program participants. Evaluation was based on daily logs, pedometer diaries, participant surveys, and focus groups.

Life-course socioeconomic position and hypertension in African American men: the Pitt County Study.

Objectives: We investigated the odds of hypertension for Black men in relationship to their socioeconomic position (SEP) in both childhood and adulthood.

Methods: On the basis of their parents' occupation, we classified 379 men in the Pitt County (North Carolina) Study into low and high childhood SEP. The men's own education, occupation, employment status, and home ownership status were used to classify them into low and high adulthood SEP.

African Americans with LVH demonstrate depressed sensitivity of the coronary microcirculation to stimulated relaxation.

Excess coronary heart disease morbidity and mortality among African Americans remains an important yet unexplained public health problem. We hypothesized that adverse outcome is in part due to intrinsic or acquired abnormalities in coronary endothelial function and vasoreactivity. We compared dose-response curves relating changes in coronary blood flow and epicardial diameter to graded infusions of acetylcholine in 50 African American and 65 white subjects with hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and normal coronary arteries.

Metabolic and skeletal effects of low and high doses of calcium acetate in patients with preterminal chronic renal failure.

Background: Secondary hyperparathyroidism commonly evolves, as the glomerular filtration rate falls. The metabolic and skeletal effects of a possible remedy, calcium acetate, have not been studied in patients with preterminal chronic renal failure.

Methods: Men with a mean creatinine clearance of approximately 30 ml/min took calcium acetate for 24 weeks at doses which provided 507 or 1,521 mg calcium/day with meals.

The presence of African American race predicts improvement in coronary endothelial function after supplementary L-arginine.

Objectives: The purpose of our study was to determine if the presence of African American ethnicity modulates improvement in coronary vascular endothelial function after supplementary L-arginine.

Background: Endothelial dysfunction is an early stage in the development of coronary atherosclerosis and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of hypertension and cardiomyopathy. Amelioration of endothelial dysfunction has been demonstrated in patients with established coronary atherosclerosis or with risk factors in response to infusion of L-arginine, the precursor of nitric oxide.