Introduction: Women engaging in sex work (WESW) have 21 times the risk of HIV acquisition compared with the general population. However, accessing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) remains challenging, and PrEP initiation and persistence are low due to stigma and related psychosocial factors. The WiSSPr (Women in Sex work, Stigma and PrEP) study aims to (1) estimate the effect of multiple stigmas on PrEP initiation and persistence and (2) qualitatively explore the enablers and barriers to PrEP use for WESW in Lusaka, Zambia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people, and AI/AN people have the highest rate of smoking of any racial or ethnic group in the US. There is limited research to inform culturally-relevant strategies for lung cancer prevention inclusive of lung cancer screening (LCS). The objective of this study was to understand determinants of LCS and tobacco cessation care in at-risk urban-dwelling AI/ANs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAfter a tumultuous 3 years of pandemic-, political-, and race-related unrest in the United States, the public is demanding accountability to communities of color (defined here as American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic people) to rectify historic and contemporary injustices that perpetuate health inequities and threaten public health. Structural racism pervades all major societal systems and exposes people to detrimental social determinants of health. Disrupting structural racism within public health systems is essential to advancing health equity and requires organized partnerships between health departments and community leaders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEducation for public health is at a critical inflection point, and either transforms for success or fails to remain relevant. In 2020, the Association for Schools and Programs of Public Health launched an initiative, Framing the Future 2030: Education for Public Health (FTF 2030) to develop a resilient educational system for public health that promotes scientific inquiry, connects research, education, and practice, eliminates inequities, incorporates anti-racism principles, creates and sustains diverse and inclusive teaching and learning communities, and optimizes systems and resources to prepare graduates who are clearly recognizable for their population health perspectives, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices. Three expert panels: (1) Inclusive excellence through an anti-racism lens; (2) Transformative approaches to teaching and learning; and (3) Expanding the reach, visibility, and impact of the field of academic public health are engaged in ongoing deliberations to generate recommendations to implement the necessary change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe current study examined the associations between perceptions of the social and physical neighborhood environments and cognitive function in older adults. This cross-sectional study analyzed 821 adults aged ≥65 years from the Adult Changes in Thought study. Perceived neighborhood attributes were measured by the Physical Activity Neighborhood Environment Scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Racism is a root cause of ill health for communities of color, and hate incidents are one manifestation of racism. Marginalized racial and ethnic groups, including but not limited to Asian Americans, have been the target of highly publicized violence, hate, and discrimination which has been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objectives: This paper investigates (1) the prevalence of hate incidents across racial and ethnic groups, and (2) the relationship between race and ethnicity and hate incidents during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The aim of this study was to examine the role of walking in explaining associations between perceived and objective measures of walkability and cognitive function among older adults. The study employed a cross-sectional design analyzing existing data. Data were obtained from the Adult Changes in Thought Activity Monitor study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Over the last several decades in the United States, socioeconomic life-expectancy inequities have increased 1-2 years. Declining labor-union density has fueled growing income inequities across classes and exacerbated racial income inequities. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, we examined the longitudinal union-mortality relationship and estimated whether declining union density has also exacerbated mortality inequities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Existing evidence indicates household income as a predictor of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) following a colorectal cancer diagnosis. This association likely varies with neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES), but evidence is limited.
Methods: We included data from 1,355 colorectal cancer survivors participating in the population-based Puget Sound Colorectal Cancer Cohort (PSCCC).
Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with increased mortality independent of BMI, resulting in discordant metabolic phenotypes, such as metabolically healthy obese and metabolically unhealthy normal-weight individuals. Studies investigating dietary intake in MetS have reported mixed results, due in part to the limitations of self-reported measures.
Objectives: To investigate the role of biomarker-calibrated estimates of energy and protein in MetS and metabolic phenotypes.
Background: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome is higher among minority populations, including individuals of Mexican ethnic descent. Whether alignment to healthy dietary patterns is associated with lower risk of metabolic syndrome in this population is largely unknown.
Objective: To prospectively evaluate the associations between diet quality scores and risk of metabolic syndrome and its components among postmenopausal women of Mexican ethnic descent.
Background: Case-based learning has historically focused on the individual patient; however, there is often little consideration within this teaching method of how social determinants of health, such as structural racism and its adverse health effects, bear upon patients' health status and consequent patient outcomes.
Problem: Implementing case studies necessitates taking into account the positionality of patients, as well as health care providers, to counter the racial oppression and discrimination embedded in existing health care and educational systems.
Approach: We describe a process for creating an inclusive, antiracist environment for case-based learning within nursing education, outlining steps for preparing students to more effectively examine case studies through social determinants of health framing and lens to mitigate harmful impacts from systemic racism and racial discrimination in clinical care.
Union members enjoy better wages and benefits and greater power than nonmembers, which can improve health. However, the longitudinal union-health relationship remains uncertain, partially because of healthy-worker bias, which cannot be addressed without high-quality data and methods that account for exposure-confounder feedback and structural nonpositivity. Applying one such method, the parametric g-formula, to US-based Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, we analyzed the longitudinal relationships between union membership, poor/fair self-rated health (SRH), and moderate mental illness (Kessler 6-item score of ≥5).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: The influence of menopausal hormone therapy on breast cancer remains unsettled with discordant findings from observational studies and randomized clinical trials.
Objective: To assess the association of prior randomized use of estrogen plus progestin or prior randomized use of estrogen alone with breast cancer incidence and mortality in the Women's Health Initiative clinical trials.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Long-term follow-up of 2 placebo-controlled randomized clinical trials that involved 27 347 postmenopausal women aged 50 through 79 years with no prior breast cancer and negative baseline screening mammogram.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev
October 2020
Background: It is biologically plausible that genotoxic estrogens, namely estrogen DNA adducts (EDA), have a role in breast cancer development. Support comes from three prior studies that reported elevated concentrations of EDA relative to estrogen metabolites and conjugates (EDA:EMC) in women with breast cancer relative to control women.
Methods: In postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), EDA:EMC in 191 controls was compared with findings in 194 prediagnosis urine samples from breast cancer cases.
Background: Physical activity is frequently proposed as an intervention to reduce fatigue and sleep disturbance in cancer survivors; however, the long-term effects of physical activity are often not reported, and older adults are typically excluded from these intervention studies.
Objectives: This article aimed to examine if postdiagnosis physical activity is associated with lower long-term fatigue and sleep disturbance in older adult breast cancer survivors.
Methods: Data were analyzed of a prospective cohort of 440 breast cancer survivors aged 65 years or older from the Women's Health Initiative study.
Background: Recent clinical trials have evaluated angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (ACEis), angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), and beta blockers (BBs) in relation to cardiotoxicity in patients with cancer, typically defined by ejection fraction declines. However, these trials have not examined long-term, hard clinical endpoints. Within a prospective study, we examined the risk of heart failure (HF) and coronary heart disease (CHD) events in relation to use of commonly used antihypertensive medications, including ACEis/ARBs, BBs, calcium channel blockers (CCB), and diuretics, comparing women with and without cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Delays in adjuvant breast cancer (BC) therapy have been shown to worsen outcomes. However, thus far studies have only evaluated delays to initial treatment, or a particular modality, such as chemotherapy, leaving uncertainty about the role of delay to subsequent therapy and the effects of cumulative delay, on outcomes. We investigated the associations of delays across treatment modalities with survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Recently, United States life expectancy has stagnated or declined for the poor and working class and risen for the middle and upper classes. Declining labor-union density-the percent of workers who are unionized-has precipitated burgeoning income inequity. We examined whether it has also exacerbated racial and educational mortality inequities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Epidemiologic studies regarding weight loss and subsequent cancer risk are sparse. The study aim was to evaluate the association between weight change by intentionality and obesity-related cancer incidence in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. Eleven cancers were considered obesity related: breast, ovary, endometrium, colon and rectum, esophagus, kidney, liver, multiple myeloma, pancreas, stomach, and thyroid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Student populations in the United States are increasingly diverse, prompting the need to make learning environments in schools of nursing more inclusive. Training for faculty is needed to support this work; however, evidence regarding best practices to make classrooms more inclusive is lacking.
Method: A 3-day Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Institute was developed and conducted to create inclusive learning environments; facilitate crucial conversations on racism and other -isms, especially in the context of nursing and health equity; and practice these skills and develop or transform at least one actual class activity.
Few data are available on patient navigators (PNs) across diverse roles and organizational settings that could inform optimization of patient navigation models for cancer prevention. The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) and the Colorectal Cancer and Control Program (CRCCP) are two federally-funded screening programs that support clinical- and community-based PNs who serve low-income and un- or underinsured populations across the United States. An online survey assessing PN characteristics, delivered activities, and patient barriers to screening was completed by 437 of 1002 identified PNs (44%).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Prostate cancer is ubiquitous in older men; differential screening patterns and variations in biopsy recommendations and acceptance will affect which man is diagnosed and, therefore, evaluation of cancer risk factors. We describe a statistical method to reduce prostate cancer detection bias among African American (n = 3398) and Non-Hispanic White men (n = 22,673) who participated in the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention trial (SELECT) and revisit a previously reported association between race, obesity and prostate cancer risk.
Methods: For men with screening values suggesting prostate cancer but in whom biopsy was not performed, the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial Risk Calculator was used to estimate probability of prostate cancer.
Reported relationships between frequency, type, and timing of eating occasions and obesity-risk among adults are mixed while associations with obesogenic eating behaviors remain unexplored. The Physical Activity and Changes in Eating (PACE) study was a group-randomized controlled trial to prevent weight gain among 34 small worksites in Seattle from 2005-2009. Baseline surveys assessed body mass index (BMI), obesogenic eating behaviors (e.
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