Discrimination creates racial battle fatigue for African-Americans

Discrimination creates racial battle fatigue for African-Americans

From the Penn State March 3 2011 news release

University Park, Pa. — Just as the constant pressure soldiers face on the battlefield can follow them home in the form of debilitating stress, African-Americans who face chronic exposure to racial discrimination may have an increased likelihood of suffering a race-based battle fatigue, according to Penn State researchers.

African-Americans who reported in a survey that they experienced more instances of racial discrimination had significantly higher odds of suffering generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) some time during their lives, according to Jose Soto, assistant professor, psychology.

Generalized anxiety disorder has both psychological and physical symptoms that are so severe that they can significantly affect everyday tasks and job performance. People with the disorder may have chronic worrying, intrusive thoughts and difficulty concentrating. Physically, the disorder may manifest such symptoms as tension headaches, extreme fatigue and ulcers. Some of these symptoms are associated with “racial battle fatigue,” a term coined by William A. Smith, associate professor, University of Utah….

 

Patient Safety Materials at Healthy Roads Media

HealthyRoads Media contains free patient and consumer health information in a variety of formats and languages.

It has recently added a set of patient safety materials adapted from guides created by SHEA (Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America)
and partners and the development support was provided by Inova Fairfax Hospital.

The materials are in English (Spanish coming soon) and  are available as handouts, web-videos and downloadable mobile videos.

The  topics covered are

• Catheter-Associated Bloodstream Infections
• Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infections
• Clostridium Difficile
• MRSA
• Surgical Site Infections
• Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus
• Ventilator Associated Pneumonia

Related link

Healthy Roads Media – A source of quality health information in many languages and multiple formats

 

 

Scitable- A free science library and personal learning tool

Scitable is a free science library and personal learning tool by Nature Publishing Group, a science publishing company.

Scitable currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology, which include the topics of evolution, gene expression, and the rich complexity of cellular processes shared by living organisms.

A sampling of topics

• Genes and Diseases
• Genetics and Society (ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genetic advances and their applications.)
• Gene Inheritance and Transmission

 

Health Care Quality Still Improving Slowly, but Disparities and Gaps in Access to Care Persist

Health Care Quality Still Improving Slowly, but Disparities and Gaps in Access to Care Persist

From the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Press Release

ress Release Date: February 28, 2011

Improvements in health care quality continue to progress at a slow rate—about 2.3 percent a year; however, disparities based on race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status and other factors persist at unacceptably high levels, according to the 2010 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report issued today by the Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).The reports, which are mandated by Congress, show trends by measuring health care quality for the Nation using a group of credible core measures. The data are based on more than 200 health care measures categorized in several areas of quality: effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, patient-centeredness, care coordination, efficiency, health system infrastructure, and access.

“All Americans should have access to high-quality, appropriate and safe health care that helps them achieve the best possible health, and these reports show that we are making very slow progress toward that goal,” said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. “We need to ramp up our overall efforts to improve quality and focus specific attention on areas that need the greatest improvement.”

Gains in health care quality were seen in a number of areas, with the highest rates of improvement in measures related to treatment of acute illnesses or injuries. For example, the proportion of heart attack patients who underwent procedures to unblock heart arteries within 90 minutes improved from 42 percent in 2005 to 81 percent in 2008.

Other very modest gains were seen in rates of screening for preventive services and child and adult immunization; however, measures of lifestyle modifications such as preventing or reducing obesity, smoking cessation and substance abuse saw no improvement.

The reports indicate that few disparities in quality of care are getting smaller, and almost no disparities in access to care are getting smaller. Overall, blacks, American Indians and Alaska Natives received worse care than whites for about 40 percent of core measures. Asians received worse care than whites for about 20 percent of core measures. And Hispanics received worse care than whites for about 60 percent of core measures. Poor people received worse care than high-income people for about 80 percent of core measures.

Of the 22 measures of access to health care services tracked in the reports, about 60 percent did not show improvement, and 40 percent worsened. On average, Americans report barriers to care one-fifth of the time, ranging from 3 percent of people saying they were unable to get or had to delay getting prescription medications to 60 percent of people saying their usual provider did not have office hours on weekends or nights. Among disparities in core access measures, only one—the gap between Asians and whites in the percentage of adults who reported having a specific source of ongoing care—showed a reduction.

Each year since 2003, AHRQ has reported on the progress and opportunities for improving health care quality and reducing health care disparities. The National Healthcare Quality Report focuses on national trends in the quality of health care provided to the American people, while the National Healthcare Disparities Report focuses on prevailing disparities in health care delivery as it relates to racial and socioeconomic factors in priority populations.

The quality and disparities reports are available online at http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/qrdr10.htm, by calling 1-800-358-9295 or by sending an E-mail to ahrqpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov.

For more information, please contact AHRQ Public Affairs: (301) 427-1892 or (301) 427-1855.

Use Twitter to get AHRQ news updates: http://www.twitter.com/ahrqnews/