Superwomen and Sleep: an Assessment of Black College Women Across the African Diaspora.

Background: Women and racial/ethnic minority groups in the U.S. report poor sleep health.

Factors Associated with Exercise Motivation among African-American Men.

Objective: The primary aims of this study were to: (1) characterize exercise stages of change among a sample of African-American men, (2) determine if exercise motivation was associated with self-reported exercise behavior, and (3) examine if groups of personal (i.e., age, BMI, income, educational attainment, and perceived health), psycho-social (i.

Standardized patient assessment of medical student empathy: ethnicity and gender effects in a multi-institutional study.

Purpose: To examine, primarily, the effects of ethnicity and gender, which could introduce bias into scoring, on standardized patient (SP) assessments of medical students and, secondarily, to examine medical students' self-reported empathy for ethnicity and gender effects so as to compare self-perception with the perceptions of SPs.

Method: Participants were 577 students from four medical schools in 2012: 373 (65%) were white, 79 (14%) black/African American, and 125 (22%) Asian/Pacific Islander. These students were assessed by 84 SPs: 62 (74%) were white and 22 (26%) were black/African American.

Family history of cancer associated with breast tumor clinicopathological features.

Hereditary breast cancers have unique clinicopathological characteristics. Therefore, the objective of this study was to establish the relationship between self-reported family history of cancer and clinicopathological features in breast cancer patients from Washington, DC. Data on incident breast cancer cases from 2000 to 2010 were obtained from the Washington, DC Cancer Registry.

An exploratory analysis of fear of recurrence among African-American breast cancer survivors.

Background: Fear of recurrence (FOR) is a psychological concern that has been studied extensively in cancer survivors but has not been adequately examined in African-American breast cancer survivors.

Purpose: This exploratory study describes the extent and nature of FOR in African-American breast cancer survivors. FOR is examined in relation to socio-demographic characteristics, treatment-related characteristics, psychological distress, and quality of life (QOL).

Priorities of low-income urban residents for interventions to address the socio-economic determinants of health.

Objectives: To determine the priorities of low-income urban residents for interventions that address the socio-economic determinants of health.

Methods: We selected and estimated the cost of 16 interventions related to education, housing, nutrition, employment, health care, healthy behavior, neighborhood improvement, and transportation. Low-income residents of Washington, D.

Impact of perceived racial discrimination on health screening in black women.

Perceived discrimination has been shown to be related to health screening behavior. The present study examines the effect of discrimination on cancer screening among women in the Black Women's Health Study. Five self-report items measured discrimination in everyday life and three items measured experiences of major discrimination.

Validation of physical activity instruments: Black Women's Health Study.

Purpose: Few studies have reported on the validity of physical activity measures in African Americans. The present study was designed to determine the validity of a self-administered physical activity questionnaire (PAQ) that was used in a large prospective study of African American women in the United States against an accelerometer (actigraph), an objective assessment of movement, and a seven-day activity diary.

Methods: The study was conducted among 101 women enrolled in the Black Women's Health Study (BWHS) cohort who resided in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, representing 11.

gamma-Radiation-induced chromosomal mutagen sensitivity is associated with breast cancer risk in African-American women: caffeine modulates the outcome of mutagen sensitivity assay.

Several different cancer studies have indicated that lymphocyte mutagen sensitivity is a marker of DNA repair deficiency and increased cancer risk. We have used a mutagen sensitivity assay (MSA) measuring gamma-radiation-induced chromosomal aberrations in freshly cultured lymphocytes and assessed breast cancer risk in African-American women. Concurrently, we conducted duplicate cultures in the presence of caffeine, which overrides G(2) arrest in cultured cells, decreases time to DNA repair, and hence increases the aberration rate.