Health, behavior, and health care disparities: disentangling the effects of income and race in the United States.

The literature on health disparities in the United States typically focuses on race/ethnicity or on socioeconomic status (SES) separately, but not often together. The purpose of the study was to assess the separate effects of race/ethnicity and SES on health status, health behaviors, and health care utilization. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted using the 2008 National Health Interview Survey (n = 17,337 non-elderly adults).

A new framework for childhood health promotion: the role of policies and programs in building capacity and foundations of early childhood health.

Although the connection between early life experiences and later health is becoming increasingly clear, what is needed, now, is a new organizing framework for childhood health promotion, grounded in the latest science. We review the evidence base to identify the steps in the overall pathway to ensuring better health for all children. A key factor in optimizing health in early childhood is building capacities of parents and communities.

Trends of human papillomavirus testing in cervical cancer screening at a large academic cytology laboratory.

Objective: To estimate time trends of actual provider use of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing in cervical cancer screening by using laboratory and administrative data from the Johns Hopkins Hospital Division of Cytopathology in Baltimore, Maryland.

Methods: In this ecologic trend study, we analyzed 178,510 Pap specimen records and 12,221 HPV tests among 85,048 patients from 2001 to 2007. Monthly frequencies and proportions of HPV reflex testing and HPV cotesting with Pap (stratified by patient ages 30 and older and 18-29 years) were calculated.

Access to primary and preventive care among foreign-born adults in Canada and the United States.

Objective: To conduct cross-country comparisons and assess the effect of foreign birth on access to primary and preventive care in Canada and the United States.

Data Sources: Secondary data from the 2002 to 2003 Joint Canada-United States Survey of Health.

Study Design: Descriptive and comparative analyses were conducted, and logistic regression models were used to assess the effect of immigrant status and country of residence on access to care.

Cancer prevention behaviors in low-income urban whites: an understudied problem.

Low-income urban whites in the United States have largely gone unexamined in health disparities research. In this study, we explored cancer prevention behaviors in this population. We compared data on whites with low socioeconomic status (SES) from the 2003 Exploring Health Disparities in Integrated Communities Study in Southwest Baltimore, Maryland (EHDIC-SWB) with nationally representative data for low SES white respondents from the 2003 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).