Naming and Framing: Six Principles for Embedding Health Equity Language in Policy Research, Writing, and Practice.

Unlabelled: Policy Points Science communication and health policy language often fail to adequately define and contextualize systemic barriers-like structural racism and wealth inequity-that contribute to disparities in health outcomes. Health policy practitioners should understand best practices for communicating research and policy findings to various audiences and understand how to disseminate messages that are culturally and linguistically responsive to different community needs. As no perfect term exists, adopting health equity language principles can help health policy practitioners avoid dehumanizing and exclusionary language as well as ill-suited terminology that perpetuates racist systems and leads to inequities in population health.

Education in the Jim Crow South and Black-White inequities in allostatic load among older adults.

In the U.S., Black adults consistently have higher allostatic load - an indicator of physiological dysregulation - than White adults.

Weathering in Detroit: Place, Race, Ethnicity, and Poverty as Conceptually Fluctuating Social Constructs Shaping Variation in Allostatic Load.

Unlabelled: Policy Points Despite 30 years of attention to eliminating population health inequity, it remains entrenched, calling for new approaches. Targeted universalism, wellness-based local development, and Jedi Public Health approaches that are community informed, evidence based, and focused on improving everyday settings and diverse lived experiences are important policy directions. State and federal revenue transfers are necessary to mitigate the harms of austerity and assure greater equity in fiscal and population health in places like Detroit, Michigan.

Addressing health inequalities in diverse, rural communities: An unmet need.

Research on rural health needs to represent the diverse demographics of these regions by carefully considering the distinct characteristics, inequities, and stressors occurring in rural communities. Drawing from our own findings and other empirical investigations examining diverse rural communities, we propose several considerations to guide future endeavors toward more inclusive rural health research. These include population-health assessment tools that consider minority stress and intervention strategies designed to reflect both the environmental and socio-cultural contexts of rural residents.

Jedi Public Health: Co-creating an Identity-Safe Culture to Promote Health Equity.

The extent to which socially-assigned and culturally mediated social identity affects health depends on contingencies of social identity that vary across and within populations in day-to-day life. These contingencies are structurally rooted and health damaging inasmuch as they activate physiological stress responses. They also have adverse effects on cognition and emotion, undermining self-confidence and diminishing academic performance.

Race-Ethnicity, Poverty, Urban Stressors, and Telomere Length in a Detroit Community-based Sample.

Residents of distressed urban areas suffer early aging-related disease and excess mortality. Using a community-based participatory research approach in a collaboration between social researchers and cellular biologists, we collected a unique data set of 239 black, white, or Mexican adults from a stratified, multistage probability sample of three Detroit neighborhoods. We drew venous blood and measured telomere length (TL), an indicator of stress-mediated biological aging, linking respondents' TL to their community survey responses.

The role of socioeconomic factors in Black-White disparities in preterm birth.

Objectives: We investigated the role of socioeconomic factors in Black-White disparities in preterm birth (PTB).

Methods: We used the population-based California Maternal and Infant Health Assessment survey and birth certificate data on 10 400 US-born Black and White California residents who gave birth during 2003 to 2010 to examine rates and relative likelihoods of PTB among Black versus White women, with adjustment for multiple socioeconomic factors and covariables.

Results: Greater socioeconomic advantage was generally associated with lower PTB rates among White but not Black women.

Sociocultural and socioeconomic influences on type 2 diabetes risk in overweight/obese African-American and Latino-American children and adolescents.

Purpose: It is unclear whether sociocultural and socioeconomic factors are directly linked to type 2 diabetes risk in overweight/obese ethnic minority children and adolescents. This study examines the relationships between sociocultural orientation, household social position, and type 2 diabetes risk in overweight/obese African-American (n = 43) and Latino-American (n = 113) children and adolescents.

Methods: Sociocultural orientation was assessed using the Acculturation, Habits, and Interests Multicultural Scale for Adolescents (AHIMSA) questionnaire.

Recommendations for including multiple symptoms as endpoints in cancer clinical trials: a report from the ASCPRO (Assessing the Symptoms of Cancer Using Patient-Reported Outcomes) Multisymptom Task Force.

The multiple symptoms arising from cancer and its treatment impose significant distress for patients. However, in clinical research, there is no agreed-upon way of assessing and presenting the effects of treatment on multiple symptoms, as either individual scores or a composite score. The ASCPRO (Assessing the Symptoms of Cancer Using Patient-Reported Outcomes) Multisymptom Task Force was established to make recommendations about measuring multiple symptoms as outcomes in cancer clinical trials.

Stress, Allostatic Load and Health of Mexican Immigrants.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether the cumulative impact of exposure to repeated or chronic stressors as measured by allostatic load, contributes to the "unhealthy assimilation" effects often observed for immigrants with time in the United States. METHODS: We analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994, to estimate multivariate logistic regression models of the odds of having a high allostatic load score among Mexican immigrants, stratified by adult age group, according to length of residence in US, controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and health input covariates. RESULTS: Estimates indicate that 45-60 year old Mexican immigrants have lower allostatic load scores upon arrival than US-born Mexican Americans, non-Hispanic whites, and non-Hispanic Blacks, and that this health advantage is attenuated with duration of residence in the US.

Race/ethnicity, socioeconomic characteristics, coethnic social ties, and health: evidence from the national Jewish population survey.

Objectives: We explored whether a White ethnic group with a history of structural disadvantage, Jewish Americans, shows evidence of continuing health impact independent of socioeconomic position (SEP), whether coethnic social ties appear health protective, and whether the strength of any protection varies by SEP.

Methods: In a series of ordered logistic regressions, we analyzed data from the National Jewish Population Survey, 2000-2001, regressing self-rated health on race/ethnicity, education, and income for US Blacks, Jews, and other Whites and, for Jews alone, indicators of coethnic social ties.

Results: controlling for SEP indicators, the self-rated health of Jews converged with that of Blacks and was significantly worse than that of other Whites.

Do US Black Women Experience Stress-Related Accelerated Biological Aging?: A Novel Theory and First Population-Based Test of Black-White Differences in Telomere Length.

We hypothesize that black women experience accelerated biological aging in response to repeated or prolonged adaptation to subjective and objective stressors. Drawing on stress physiology and ethnographic, social science, and public health literature, we lay out the rationale for this hypothesis. We also perform a first population-based test of its plausibility, focusing on telomere length, a biomeasure of aging that may be shortened by stressors.

Epidemiologic study on survival of chronic myeloid leukemia and Ph(+) acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients with BCR-ABL T315I mutation.

The BCR-ABL T315I mutation represents a major mechanism of resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). The objectives of this retrospective observational study were to estimate overall and progression-free survival for chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic-phase (CP), accelerated-phase (AP), or blastic-phase (BP) and Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph)(+) acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients with T315I mutation. Medical records of 222 patients from 9 countries were reviewed; data were analyzed using log-rank tests and Cox proportional hazard models.

The GRID-HAMD: standardization of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.

This report describes the GRID-Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (GRID-HAMD), an improved version of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale that was developed through a broad-based international consensus process. The GRID-HAMD separates the frequency of the symptom from its intensity for most items, refines several problematic anchors, and integrates both a structured interview guide and consensus-derived conventions for all items. Usability was established in a small three-site sample of convenience, evaluating 29 outpatients, with most evaluators finding the scale easy to use.

Longitudinal evaluation of interobserver and intraobserver agreement of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia diagnosis among an experienced panel of gynecologic pathologists.

Histologic diagnoses of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grades 2 and 3 (CIN 2/3) are the key end points in clinical trials that evaluate the efficacy of a prophylactic quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine against cervical cancer. Adjudication of end points uses a panel of 4 pathologists. Quality control slides (n=185) from a nonclinical trial study with preestablished gold standard CIN diagnoses were used to characterize the panel's agreement on CIN diagnoses and monitor performance longitudinally.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and risk of prostate cancer in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Background: Laboratory and epidemiologic studies suggest that aspirin and nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) reduce the risk of cancer, possibly via inhibition of the cyclooxygenase enzymes. We evaluated the association of aspirin and nonaspirin NSAIDs with subsequent prostate cancer in a prospective study. We also assessed whether use of these drugs influences serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) concentration.

Familial aggregation of bothersome benign prostatic hyperplasia symptoms.

Objectives: To evaluate familial aggregation and the mode of inheritance of bothersome benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

Methods: During an extension of the North American Finasteride Trial, 301 of 895 patients and 158 spousal controls completed a family history questionnaire. Segregation analysis was performed to examine the mode of inheritance in first-degree relatives of the 301 probands.

A randomized, placebo controlled, multicenter study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of rofecoxib in the treatment of chronic nonbacterial prostatitis.

Purpose: We determine the effects of treatment with rofecoxib and placebo in patients with chronic prostatitis.

Materials And Methods: Patients diagnosed with chronic nonbacterial prostatitis were randomized to 6 weeks of 25 or 50 mg., rofecoxib or placebo in a double-blind multicenter study with a 1-week run in of placebo.

Estimation of energy expenditure in Western Samoa, American Samoa, and Honolulu by recall interviews and direct observation.

Reliable and accurate estimates of energy expenditure are a fundamental requirement for research on energy balance, energy flow, and other biocultural phenomena. Cross-validation of estimates derived from more than one time-allocation method can detect sources of bias and may lead to estimates which are more credible than those from activity recalls used alone. This paper compares 24-hour activity recalls and direct observations as methods of estimating the energy expenditure of 145 18-37-year-old Samoans residing in rural Western Samoa, American Samoa, and Honolulu.