The Asthma Control and Communication Instrument: a clinical tool developed for ethnically diverse populations.

Background: Lower levels of quality asthma care among racially diverse populations might be due to inaccurate disease status assessments. The Asthma Control and Communication Instrument (ACCI) is a new tool that captures patient report of disease status during routine care.

Objective: We sought to test the ACCI's psychometric properties in a racially diverse population.

Patient factors that physicians use to assign asthma treatment.

Background: Asthma guidelines recommend severity assessment to assign treatment, often quantified as current control. It is unknown how strongly control assessment affects clinician treatment decisions, nor if control is sufficient.

Methods: To determine patient factors used by physicians to assign treatment, we surveyed pulmonary specialists (PSs) and family physicians (FPs) using vignettes.

Barriers to health services perceived by Marshallese immigrants.

The Marshallese immigrant population, part of a growing Asian American and Pacific Islander population in the United States, has adverse health conditions and disparities that are mainly attributed to their pre-migration health status. Little is known about the perceived and real barriers Marshallese experience in accessing and utilizing health services in the United States. Because of these barriers, their health status is known to exacerbate.

Risk factors associated with osteoporosis in Hispanic women.

This study examined risk factors for osteoporosis in Hispanic women. Factors examined included ethnicity, gender, age, height, weight, family and personal history of fractures, height loss, exercise, diet, time since menopause or hysterectomy, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), calcium supplementation, hypertension, thyroid disease, diabetes, arthritis, chemotherapy, family history of breast cancer, use of water pills, fosamax, steroids, alcohol, and smoking. Most results found parallel those found in the Caucasian population.