•Situating engagement within the experience and priorities of survivors will enhance translational research and health equity.•The TRUST framework provides a guide to expand opportunities for community engagement in cardio-oncology for multiple constituents and across the care continuum.•Training community members as cardio-oncology champions may promote stakeholder representation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To examine if racial differences in cardiovascular health (CVH) are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) disparities among women with breast and gynecologic cancers.
Sample & Setting: The sample consisted of 252 Black women and 93 White women without a self-reported history of cancer or CVD who developed a breast or gynecologic malignancy. Women who developed CVD before their cancer diagnosis were excluded.
Resilience, thriving in the face of adversity, is a critical component of well-being in African American women. However, traditional definitions and approaches to operationalize resilience may not capture race- and gender-related resilience experiences of African American women. A more complete conceptualization of resilience may help facilitate future investigation of the mechanisms through which resilience influences health in this group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Little is known about whether a breast or gynecologic cancer diagnosis increases long-term cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among Black females. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a breast or gynecologic cancer diagnosis is associated with CVD risk and identify determinants of subsequent CVD risk among Black females with an incident breast or gynecologic cancer diagnosis.
Methods: Using the Southern Community Cohort Study data from 2002-2016, this study was designed to analyze CVD incidence among Black females without cancer or CVD at enrollment.
Aims: To explore how emerging adult-aged women self-manage their sexual and reproductive health and to generate a grounded theory of these self-management processes.
Design: Grounded theory methods using a constructivist approach.
Methods: Between September 2019 and September 2020, 18- to 25-years-old women (n = 13) were recruited from a 4-year university, a 2-year community college, and neighbourhoods surrounding the institutions of higher education.
Objective: Emerging adult-aged (EA;18-25 years) women have disproportionately high rates of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections compared to other women of reproductive age. Little is known about how EA women define and prioritize various aspects of sexual and reproductive health. The purpose of this study was to identify EA women determined definitions of sexual and reproductive health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFColumbus, Ohio is one of the more prosperous, well-educated, and progressive cities in the United States. However, it ranks as the second worst life expectancy at birth, has a census tract wealth gap (27-year disparity), and one of the higher infant mortality rates in the country. These data suggest that there are likely several high-risk, vulnerable neighborhoods in Columbus with residents experiencing disparate and adverse outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Racial Ethn Health Disparities
October 2023
We examined whether resilience modified associations between allostatic load (AL), a physiological indicator of coping with repeated stressors, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) among 2758 African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study. Baseline AL was quantified using biological measures of metabolic, cardiovascular, and immune markers. We constructed a multidimensional resilience measure using validated questionnaires for social support, social networks, religious experiences, and optimism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Black women often experience poorer breast cancer-related outcomes and higher mortality than white women. A contributor to this disparity may relate to the disproportionate burden of cancer treatment-related cardiovascular (CV) toxicities. The objective of this review is to identify studies that report racial differences in CV toxicity risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study examined consumption proportions and factors associated with sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs), and 100% fruit juice (FJ) consumption. We recruited Non-Hispanic Black ( = 136) and White ( = 192) low-income overweight or obese pregnant women aged 18 to 46 years (mean = 25.7 years) from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children clinics in Michigan, USA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough Black American mothers and infants are at higher risk for morbidity and mortality than their White counterparts, the biological mechanisms underlying these phenomena remain largely unknown. To investigate the role that lifetime stressor exposure, perceived stressor severity, and systemic inflammatory markers might play, we studied how these factors were interrelated in 92 pregnant Black American women. We also compared inflammatory marker levels for women who did versus did not go on to give birth preterm.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the last three decades, increased attention has been given to the representation of historically underrepresented groups within the landscape of pivotal clinical trials. However, recent events (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo adequately address health disparities, underserved populations must be recruited for biomedical research. Particularly, Black women have been insufficiently included in biomedical research for reasons beyond those of participant preference. Researchers can and should be taking responsibility to ensure rigorous methods are employed to appropriately recruit Black women and enable meaningful implications of their results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cancer survivors have a higher risk of developing and dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to the general population. We sought to determine whether 10-year risk of atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD) is elevated among those with vs. without a cancer history in a nationally representative U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To study differences in screening adherence and follow-up after an abnormal Pap test in Non-Hispanic Black (Black) and Non-Hispanic White (White) women.
Methods: An observational cohort study using 2010 National Health Interview Survey cancer module to examine HPV knowledge, screening behavior, and follow-up to abnormal Pap test in Black and White women 18 years of age or older without a hysterectomy. We fit logistic regression models to examine associations between race and primary outcome variables including: HPV awareness, Pap test in the last three years, provider recommended Pap test, received Pap test results, had an abnormal Pap test, recommended follow-up, and adhered to the recommendation for follow-up.
Poor adherence to screening recommendations is an important contributing factor to disparities in breast and cervical cancer outcomes among women in the USA. Screening behaviors are multifactorial, but there has been limited focus on how family network beliefs and behaviors influence individual's likelihood to complete screening. This research aims to fill this gap by evaluating the role of family network composition and screening behaviors on women's likelihood to adhere to mammogram and pap screening recommendations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Breast and cervical cancers are screen-detectable; yet, challenges exist with ensuring uptake of mammography and Pap smear. Family, a central factor in developing knowledge to carry out health promotion behaviors, may be an asset to improving intention to screen among non-adherent women from underrepresented minority groups. We explored familial cancer; communication; and breast and cervical screening intention among non-adherent Black, Latina, and Arab women in the United States who participated in a randomized controlled trial of the Kin Keeper Cancer Prevention Intervention study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAfrican Americans are at heightened risk for coronary heart disease (CHD), with biologic pathways poorly understood. We examined the role of allostatic load (AL) in the association of depressive symptoms with incident CHD among 2,670 African American men and women in the prospective Jackson Heart Study. Depressive symptoms were quantified using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCirc Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes
April 2019
Background: Empirical data on the link between stress and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among black women is limited. We examined associations of stressful life events and social strain with incident CVD among black women and tested for effect modification by resilience.
Methods And Results: Our analysis included 10 785 black women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study and Clinical Trials cohort.
We report integration of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA) United States Environmental Justice Screen (EJSCREEN) database with our Public Health Exposome dataset to interrogate 9232 census blocks to model the complexity of relationships among environmental and socio-demographic variables toward estimating adverse pregnancy outcomes [low birth weight (LBW) and pre-term birth (PTB)] in all Ohio counties. Using a hill-climbing algorithm in R software, we derived a Bayesian network that mapped all controlled associations among all variables available by applying a mapping algorithm. The results revealed 17 environmental and socio-demographic variables that were represented by nodes containing 69 links accounting for a network with 32.
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