1-3 of 3 Results  for:

  • Special Populations x
  • Public Health Profession x
Clear all

Article

Intervention Approaches for Osteoarthritis  

Susan Hughes, Cheryl Der Ananian, and Andrew DeMott

Osteoarthritis (OA) currently affects 32.5 million people in the United States at a cost of $136.8 billion. The available literature on the epidemiology of OA shows that the number of people affected will increase exponentially by the year 2040, affecting 78.4 million people. There is an abundance of evidence that self-management and physical activity (PA) approaches improve multiple outcomes for individuals with arthritis. However, these programs are not widely accessible to the population that can benefit from them across the United States. Two national organizations—the arthritis program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Administration on Community Living (ACL)—have established similar, but distinct, criteria for the review of evidence-based programs and seek to promote their dissemination. The CDC arthritis program has reviewed the evidence bases of arthritis-appropriate, evidence-based intervention programs and classified them as self-management or PA approaches. These “recognized” programs are recommended for national dissemination by the CDC. The ACL has also recognized several of the same programs by using its own criteria and classified them as Self-Management or Falls Prevention approaches. The different review criteria used by these two national public organizations present significant challenges for investigators who design interventions. The situation is further compounded by an investment in funding that hugely supports the discovery of interventions as opposed to the dissemination of interventions that have demonstrated efficacy. The National Public Health Agenda for Osteoarthritis: 2020 Update presents a blueprint that includes nine strategies for improving public health outcomes among persons with OA. These recommendations should be considered by interventionists in the future when developing programs. Other areas that can substantially benefit from further research include weight management and weight loss, injury prevention, technology-based interventions, addressing comorbid conditions, and understanding program mechanisms of action. Finally, underscoring all of these approaches and common to them is the need to enroll underserved populations to improve health equity. Underserved populations disproportionately include African Americans, Hispanics, persons with low socioeconomic status, and persons who live in rural areas of the United States. Policy recommendations to render future approaches to improving health outcomes for persons with OA are (a) to increase funding for the dissemination of programs that demonstrated efficacy and effectiveness, (b) to increase the transparency of the review and funding processes across public agencies, and (c) to nurture, broker, and provide sustainable funding streams to maintain evidence-based programming for all persons with OA across the United States.

Article

Occupational Health Challenges for Immigrant Workers  

Emily Q. Ahonen

Occupational health and safety concerns classically encompass conditions and hazards in workplaces which, with sufficient exposure, can lead to injury, distress, illness, or death. The ways in which work is organized and the arrangements under which people are employed have also been linked to worker health. Migrants are people who cross borders away from their usual place of residence, and about one in seven people worldwide is a migrant. Terms like “immigrant” and “emigrant” refer to the direction of that movement relative to the stance of the speaker. Any person who might be classified as a migrant and who works or seeks to work is an immigrant worker and may face challenges to safety, health, and well-being related to the work he or she does. The economic, legal, and social circumstances of migrant workers can place them into employment and working conditions that endanger their safety, health, or well-being. While action in support of migrant worker health must be based on systematic understanding of these individuals’ needs, full understanding the possible dangers to migrant worker health is limited by conceptual and practical challenges to public health surveillance and research about migrant workers. Furthermore, intervention in support of migrant worker health must balance tensions between high-risk and population-based approaches and need to address the broader, structural circumstances that pattern the health-related experiences of migrant workers. Considering the relationships between work and health that include but go beyond workplace hazards and occupational injury, and engaging with the ways in which structural influences act on health through work, are complex endeavors. Without more critically engaging with these issues, however, there is a risk of undermining the effectiveness of efforts to improve the lot of migrant workers by “othering” the workers or by failing to focus on what is causing the occupational safety and health concern in the first place—the characteristics of the work people do. Action in support of migrant workers should therefore aim to ameliorate structural factors that place migrants into disadvantageous conditions while working to improve conditions for all workers.

Article

The Role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Advancing Health Equity  

Orlando L. Taylor, Nicole L. Retland, Briana Jeffreys, Elaine Meredith, Melissa E. Wynn, and Pamela L. Carter-Nolan

The end of the Civil War marked a period when America’s medical practitioners considered the Black populace to be unworthy of proper health care on par with that of its White populace. Although slavery had officially ended, its vestiges remained prevalent in the lives of formerly enslaved persons. Indeed, lingering health issues permeated the generations that have followed, such that diseases that are highly treatable have often resulted in premature illness and death. Historically, the health-care industry has even blamed the formerly enslaved and subsequent generations for their own health conditions. In the early post–Civil War years, state and local statutes legalizing segregation in the American South (known as the Jim Crow laws) cemented these views and perpetuated unfair and unequal health-care conditions. In more recent years, COVID-19 exacerbated an already dire situation, and a disproportionate share of illness and death has occurred among African Americans and other underrepresented masses. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) can lead the way in bringing some semblance of equality to this situation. Primarily increasing the fiscal resources of HBCUs so that they can further advance the education of a more diverse health-care workforce is a critical component for providing culturally sensitive health care for the nation. HBCUs already play a disproportionate role in these efforts andwill likely continue their role to effect much-needed change in the prevalence of treatable illnesses and deadly diseases among America’s Black population. While continuing their historic mission to educate the Black populace of the United States, resulting from generations of racial exclusionary and discriminatory practices by predominantly White institutions, HBCUs continue to provide compassionate culturally sensitive education in the public health-care field. Moreover, they provide real-time testimony for the nation’s higher education enterprise on how to provide equality in health-care education.