Exploring Nursing Strategies to Engage Community in Cardiovascular Care.

Purpose Of Review: This review aims to highlight some of the strategies nurses use to engage community members in cardiovascular care. We also elaborate on opportunities for improving community engagement.

Recent Findings: Community engagement occurs across a continuum of progressive levels of community involvement, impact, trust, and flow of communication.

Autoantibody prevalence and lupus characteristics in a unique African American population.

Objective: The Gullah population of the Sea Islands of South Carolina is a unique group of African Americans who, due to geographic and cultural factors, remained isolated with minimal genetic admixture until the 1950s. Because of the unique homogeneous nature of the Gullah, we sought to define the genetic and environmental factors contributing to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in this population.

Methods: Using data from our ongoing cohort study of lupus in the Gullah population, which we established in 2003, disease characteristics and serologic profiles were summarized for 184 patients with SLE, 144 unaffected first-degree relatives, and 144 matched unrelated, unaffected control subjects.

An intervention study to increase colorectal cancer knowledge and screening among community elders.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a culturally relevant intervention, delivered over 12 months on knowledge of colorectal cancer and participation in fecal occult blood testing. An experimental, repeated measures design was used. Free fecal occult blood testing was offered to the participants.