The Influence of Patient Race and Activation on Pain Management in Advanced Lung Cancer: a Randomized Field Experiment.

Background: Pain management racial disparities exist, yet it is unclear whether disparities exist in pain management in advanced cancer.

Objective: To examine the effect of race on physicians' pain assessment and treatment in advanced lung cancer and the moderating effect of patient activation.

Design: Randomized field experiment.

The social and behavioral influences (SBI) study: study design and rationale for studying the effects of race and activation on cancer pain management.

Background: Racial disparities exist in the care provided to advanced cancer patients. This article describes an investigation designed to advance the science of healthcare disparities by isolating the effects of patient race and patient activation on physician behavior using novel standardized patient (SP) methodology.

Methods/design: The Social and Behavioral Influences (SBI) Study is a National Cancer Institute sponsored trial conducted in Western New York State, Northern/Central Indiana, and lower Michigan.

Association Between Discrimination and Objective and Subjective Sleep Measures in the Midlife in the United States Study Adult Sample.

Objective: Evidence suggests that sleep quality is worse in nonwhite minorities compared with whites. Poor sleep is associated with higher levels of perceived interpersonal discrimination, which is consistently reported among minorities. However, the literature is limited in exploring discrimination with both objective and subjective sleep outcomes in the same sample.

Alcohol Use and Mental Health Conditions Among Black College Males: Do Those Attending Postsecondary Minority Institutions Fare Better Than Those at Primarily White Institutions?

While there is a sizeable body of research examining the association between alcohol use and mental health conditions among college students, there are sparse investigations specifically focusing on these associations among Black college students. This is concerning given Black college students face different stressors compared with their non-Black peers. Black males appear especially at risk, exhibiting increased susceptibility to mental health issues and drinking in greater quantities and more frequently than Black females.

Correlates of past year dental health visits: findings from the Indiana black men's health study.

Objectives: To examine the role of social support and additional predisposing, enabling and need factors that may be associated with past year dental visits among adult Black men.

Methods: Data came from a 2011 study of 1,444 Black men from 12 Indiana counties. Based on Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Service Utilization, we conducted multivariable logistic regression analyses examining predisposing (age, sex, marital status, education), enabling (income, employment, health insurance, place of sick care, social support) and need factors (self-reported smoking status, health status, mental health days, and fruit and vegetable consumption).

A Differential Item Functional Analysis by Age of Perceived Interpersonal Discrimination in a Multi-racial/ethnic Sample of Adults.

We investigated whether individual items on the nine item William's Perceived Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) functioned differently by age (<45 vs ≥ 45) within five racial groups in the United States: Asians (n=2,017); Hispanics (n=2,688); Black Caribbeans (n=1,377); African Americans (n=3,434); and Whites (n=854). We used data from the 2001-2003 National Survey of American Lives and the 2001-2003 National Latino and Asian Studies. Multiple-indicator, multiple-cause models (MIMIC) were used to examine differential item functioning (DIF) on the EDS by age within each racial/ethnic group.

Examining the relationship between the endorsement of racial/ethnic stereotypes and excess body fat composition in a national sample of African Americans and black Caribbeans.

Using the National Survey of American Life, a nationally representative household survey of non-institutionalized US Blacks, our study examined whether the endorsement of racial/ ethnic stereotypes was associated with excess body fat composition among African Americans (n = 3,265) and Black Caribbeans (n = 1,332) living in the United States. We used ordinary least squares and multinomial logistic regression analyses controlling for potential confounders. Results from the linear regression suggested that the endorsement of racial/ethnic stereotypes was associated with increased body mass index and weight among African American males (b = .

Interpersonal discrimination and depressive symptomatology: examination of several personality-related characteristics as potential confounders in a racial/ethnic heterogeneous adult sample.

Background: Research suggests that reports of interpersonal discrimination result in poor mental health. Because personality characteristics may either confound or mediate the link between these reports and mental health, there is a need to disentangle its role in order to better understand the nature of discrimination-mental health association. We examined whether hostility, anger repression and expression, pessimism, optimism, and self-esteem served as confounders in the association between perceived interpersonal discrimination and CESD-based depressive symptoms in a race/ethnic heterogeneous probability-based sample of community-dwelling adults.

The relationship between perceived discrimination and psychotherapeutic and illicit drug misuse in Chicago, IL, USA.

Based on several stress-coping frameworks, recent studies have suggested that perceived experiences of discrimination, a psychosocial stressor, may be associated with various risky health behaviors. The 2001 Chicago Community Adult Health Study (n = 3,101), a face-to-face representative probability sample of adults in Chicago, IL, USA, was used to examine the relationship among lifetime everyday discrimination, major discrimination, and the use of illicit and psychotherapeutic drugs for nonmedical reasons. We used negative binomial logistic and multinomial regression analyses controlling for potential confounders.

Variations in hypertension-related outcomes among Blacks, Whites and Hispanics in two large urban areas and in the United States.

Objective: This study compared the hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control in Chicago, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan to that of the general United States population (aged > or = 25 years) for the period 2001-2003. We examined whether and how much 1) urban populations have less favorable hypertension-related outcomes and 2) the rates of racial/ethnic minorities lag behind those of Whites in order to determine if the national data understate the magnitude of hypertension-related outcomes and racial/ethnic disparities in two large cities in the Midwestern region of the United States and perhaps others.

Methods: Unstandardized and standardized hypertension-related outcome rates were estimated.

Perceived discrimination and DSM-IV-based alcohol and illicit drug use disorders.

Objectives: We examined the relationship between everyday and major discrimination and alcohol and drug use disorders in a nationally representative sample of African Americans and Black Caribbeans.

Methods: With data from the National Survey of American Life Study, we employed multivariable logistic regression analyses--while controlling for potential confounders--to examine the relationship between everyday and major discrimination and substance use disorders on the basis of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria.

Results: Every 1 unit increase in the everyday discrimination scale positively predicted alcohol (odds ratio [OR] = 1.

Association between perceived interpersonal everyday discrimination and waist circumference over a 9-year period in the Midlife Development in the United States cohort study.

The relation between perceived interpersonal experiences of discrimination and measures of obesity is of great interest to many. This study examined the relation between changes in waist circumference and changes in perceived interpersonal everyday discrimination using the 1995-2004 Midlife Development in the United States cohort study (N = 1,452). After controlling for potential confounding variables that assessed behavioral and sociodemographic characteristics, sex-stratified ordinary least squares regression analyses suggested that the waist circumference of adult males who reported consistently high levels of interpersonal everyday discrimination increased 2.

The association between perceived discrimination and obesity in a population-based multiracial and multiethnic adult sample.

Objectives: We examined whether perceived chronic discrimination was related to excess body fat accumulation in a random, multiethnic, population-based sample of US adults.

Methods: We used multivariate multinomial logistic regression and logistic regression analyses to examine the relationship between interpersonal experiences of perceived chronic discrimination and body mass index and high-risk waist circumference.

Results: Consistent with other studies, our analyses showed that perceived unfair treatment was associated with increased abdominal obesity.

A birth records analysis of the Maternal Infant Health Advocate Service program: a paraprofessional intervention aimed at addressing infant mortality in African Americans.

Recognizing that no single intervention was likely to eliminate racial disparities, the Genesee County REACH 2010 partnership, utilizing both "bench" science and "trench" knowledge, developed 13 broad-based, multi-faceted interventions to eliminate infant mortality. This article provides highlights from a recent birth records comparison analysis of the Maternal Infant Health Advocate Service (MIHAS) intervention, and is solely based on the records of 111 MIHAS clients, and a random sample of 350 African-American women residing in Flint, Michigan. The MIHAS clients were more likely than the comparison sample not to have graduated from high school (56% vs 35%, respectively, P<.