Publications by authors named "Tyler K Smith"

Objective: Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions. Inadequate health literacy is associated with health disparities, poor health outcomes, and increased emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations. Children with medical complexity (CMC) have high rates of acute health care utilization.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Optimizing pulmonary health across the lifespan begins from the earliest stages of childhood and requires a partnership between the family, pulmonologist, and pediatrician to achieve equitable outcomes. The Community Pediatrics session of the Defining and Promoting Pediatric Pulmonary Health workshop weaved together 4 community-based pillars with 4 research principles to set an agenda for future pediatric pulmonary research in optimizing lung and sleep health for children and adolescents. To address diversity, equity, and inclusion, both research proposals and workforce must purposefully include a diverse set of participants that reflects the community served, in addition to embracing nontraditional, community-based sites of care and social determinants of health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Education and clinical training about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) is essential for the personal and professional development of pediatric residents in preparation for a career providing health care to diverse pediatric populations. The ability of pediatric residents to reflect on their lived experiences while gaining perspectives about their patients has the potential to positively affect the health care of patients and decrease health inequities. Clinical rotations were established for students from underrepresented populations in medicine as a pathway for matching and diversifying pediatric residency programs with the potential to help diversify the pediatric workforce.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

As many residency programs expand teaching to address the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that residents need to dismantle structural racism and other systemic inequities, many faculty are not prepared to teach these topics. However, there is limited literature on which to base faculty development in this area. The aim of this article is to review how diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice education is integrated in pediatric faculty development efforts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Curricula in medical education continue to evolve as societal demographics shift and medical innovation transforms the practice of medicine. The next generation of physicians must be well trained, prepared, and adept to provide health care to diverse patient populations. The last few years have witnessed increased awareness about racial and social injustice, with medical institutions acting swiftly to create and implement or enhance curricula about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) including topics such as antiracism, bias, cultural humility and sensitivity, and health care disparities and inequities.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Type two diabetes mellitus is a chronic medical condition encountered by physicians providing medical care to adult and pediatric patients. This autobiographical case report discusses type two diabetes from the perspective of positive and negative interactions with the healthcare system in managing diabetes mellitus, especially for a physician of color and underrepresented in medicine. Bias and assumptions occur for some people diagnosed with diabetes mellitus or presumed to have the disease based on age, body habitus, comorbidities, lived environment, race, and ethnicity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) often develops in concert with related metabolic diseases, such as obesity, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. Prolonged lipid accumulation and inflammation can progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Although factors associated with the development of NAFLD are known, triggers for the progression of NAFLD to NASH are poorly understood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We hypothesized that families who are nonadherent to the routine vaccination schedule (RVS) present less frequently for physician visits. We conducted a retrospective chart review to compare the number of visits made over the subsequent 12-month period by families that refused the RVS versus those who were adherent. Subjects were aged 0 to 4 years, enrolled to Keller Army Hospital, and had a diagnosis indicating the RVS was refused.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fathers play a critical role in children's development; similarly, fatherhood positively affects men's health. Among the larger population of fathers relatively little is known about the parenting knowledge of urban, African American fathers. Focusing on urban, African American fathers, the objectives of this study were to (1) understand the primary sources from which fathers learn about parenting, (2) determine where and how fathers prefer to receive future parenting education, and (3) explore the information perceived as most valuable to fathers and how this compares with the recommended anticipatory guidance (Bright Futures-based) delivered during well visits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF