Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem?

How can we all work together to eliminate the avoidable injustices that plague our health care system and society?Health is determined by far more than a person's choices and behaviors. Social and political conditions, economic forces, physical environments, institutional policies, health care system features, social relationships, risk behaviors, and genetic predispositions all contribute to physical and mental well-being. In America and around the world, many of these factors are derived from a lingering history of unequal opportunities and unjust treatment for people of color and other vulnerable communities. But they aren't the only ones who suffer because of these disparities—everyone is impacted by the factors that degrade health for the least advantaged among us.In Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? Dr. Lisa Cooper shows how we can work together to eliminate the injustices that plague our health care system and society. The book follows Cooper's journey from her childhood in Liberia, West Africa, to her thirty-year career working first as a clinician and then as a health equity researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Drawing on her experiences, it explores how differences in communication and the quality of relationships affect health outcomes. Through her work as the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, it details the actions and policies needed to reduce and eliminate the conditions that are harming us all. Cooper reveals with compelling detail how health disparities are crippling our health care system and society, driving up health care costs, leading to adverse health outcomes and ultimately an enormous burden of human suffering. Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? demonstrates the ways in which everyone's health is interconnected, both within communities and across the globe. Cooper calls for a new kind of herd immunity, when a sufficiently high proportion of people, across race and social class, become immune to harmful social conditions through "vaccination" with solidarity among groups and opportunities created by institutional and societal practices and policies. By acknowledging and acting upon that interconnectedness, she believes everyone can help to create a healthier world.Features• Raises readers' health care inequities literacy through an approachable narrative with specific examples• Introduces the concept of "herd immunity" as it applies to building communal awareness of systemic injustices• Features sections that underscore key takeaways• Includes contributions from the world's leading minds through their research findings and quotations• Guides readers on what can be done at an individual level as a patient, public health professional, and community member • Includes inspiring stories of effective health equity studies and practices around the world, from Ghana's ADHINCRA Project addressing hypertension control to Baltimore's BRIDGE Study for depression in African Americans and the Maryland and Pennsylvania–based RICH LIFE Project for hypertension, diabetes, and other medical conditionsJohns Hopkins WavelengthsIn classrooms, field stations, and laboratories in Baltimore and around the world, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors of Johns Hopkins University are opening the boundaries of our understanding of many of the world's most complex challenges. The Johns Hopkins Wavelengths book series brings readers inside their stories, illustrating how their pioneering discoveries benefit people in their neighborhoods and across the globe in artificial intelligence, cancer research, food systems' environmental impacts, health equity, science diplomacy, and other critical arenas of study. Through these compelling narratives, their insights will spark conversations from dorm rooms to dining rooms to boardrooms

Clinicians in leadership: To what extent does clinical leadership influence the delivery of NHS Wirral's provider services

The importance of Clinical Leadership in the delivery of high quality healthcare is well documented (Department of Health (DH), 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2009a) and now widely acknowledged as being a driver for change within the National Health Service (NHS). This research investigates the influence of Clinical Leadership on the delivery of NHS Wirral's Provider Services. NHS Wirral Provider Services is a large provider of community based healthcare to the registered population of Wirral (340,000 population) and has an annual budget in excess of fifty-two million pounds In order to create a conceptual background and framework for this research, the concepts of Leadership and Clinical Leadership are explored in the literature review, which includes analysis of the current contextual backdrop of driving forces affecting Clinical Leadership which support the organisational importance of the research. The research utilises an interpretative phenomenological approach and a combination of inductive and deductive techniques to create the research instruments, which include semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Within-method triangulation of data is achieved which supports the validity and reliability of the findings and subsequent conclusions presented. Following data collection and analysis, the research highlights a number of issues within NHS Wirral's Provider Services relating to Clinical Leadership. Consequently, the Author concludes there is an understanding of Clinical Leadership within NHS Wirral's Provider Services at the time of this research. However it is difficult to ascertain to what extent Clinical Leadership may influence the delivery of NHS Wirral's Provider Services. The report finishes with recommendations based on the research, which if addressed, will contribute to the development of Clinical Leadership and its potential influence on the delivery of NHS Wirral's Provider Services

Childhood Obesity: The Role of Health Policy

This first policy report from the CPRC and the NICHQ Childhood Obesity Action Network was released on March 18, 2008 in Miami Florida as part of the Second Childhood Obesity Congress

THE BIG PICTURE: PRODUCTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF REDUCED US OBESITY

This paper assesses how successfully reducing the incidence of overweight and obesity in the US to meet public health objectives might influence agricultural production. We also examine the consequent agri-environmental effects of the production changes. Our estimates show that a reduction in aggregate consumption by between 2 and 6 percent, associated with public health goals being met, would lead to reduced production of primary agricultural commodities, increased exports, and reduced discharge of agricultural pollutants. In both cases, neither the estimated changes in commodity production nor the subsequent environmental impacts would be uniform across the landscape. Results indicate that in value terms, the largest changes (either positive or negative) in agricultural producer net returns would occur in the Corn Belt and the Lake States; conversely, the largest impacts on consumer surplus would occur in the Northeast and Pacific regions.Health Economics and Policy,

Northeastern News- Winter 1999

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/neiunews/1051/thumbnail.jp

Functional Analysis of FAM83D and DUPD1 – Two Novel Neruogenic Skeletal Muscle Atrophy-Induced Genes

Fam83d and Dupd1 have been identified as novel genes in skeletal muscle that are upregulated in response to neurogenic atrophy in a mouse model. qPCR analysis reveaed both genes are expressed in skeletal muscle with Fam83d expression being highest during myoblast proliferation, while Dupd1 expression is highest during myotube differentiation. Overexpression of either protein results in inhibition of proper muscle cell differentiation as evidenced by repression of both myosin heavy chain and myogenin expression. Characterization of transcriptional activity revealed both genes are modulated by myogenic regulatory factors and additionally, Dupd1 expression is enhanced by dexamethasone treatment. Assessment of subcellular localization revealed that Fam83d localizes in a punctate manner in the cytoplasm, while the expression of Dupd1 showed ubiquitous distribution throughout the cell. To assess function, Fam83d or Dupd1 were ectopically overexpressed in cultured muscle cells. Overexpression of Fam83d resulted in significant repression of phosphorylated ERK and AKT. Interestingly, inhibition of the 26S proteasome and the MAP kinase signaling pathway both resulted in stabilization of Fam83d during muscle cell differentiation. Finally, Fam83d has a putative phospholipase D-like domain that appears to be necessary for destabilizing casein kinase Iα and inhibiting ERK phosphorylation in cultured myoblasts. Overexpression of Dupd1 resulted in significant repression of phosphorylated ERK and AMPK. Additionally, Dupd1 overexpression resulted in dramatic increases in GR protein as well as phosphorylated GR, while attenuating activity of a GRE reporter gene. The discovery that Fam83d and Dupd1 are expressed in skeletal muscle combined with the observation that they are induced in response to neurogenic atrophy helps further our understanding of the molecular and cellular events of skeletal muscle wastin

Northeastern News- Summer 1999

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/neiunews/1050/thumbnail.jp

Northeastern News- Winter 1998

https://neiudc.neiu.edu/neiunews/1049/thumbnail.jp

Program evaluation of a suicide prevention walk: finding postvention opportunities for promoting resilience in survivors of suicide loss

Each year more than 34,000 people die by suicide leaving between 6 to10 survivors of suicide loss behind for every person who dies. The risk of suicide for these survivors is between 2 to 10 times the general population. It is imperative that postvention efforts target vulnerable individuals grieving suicide losses. Recent studies have examined the efficacy of postvention supports for these survivors, such as counseling and survivors of suicide support groups; however, little is known about the vast majority of survivors who do not seek services. Each year, large numbers of survivors of suicide loss attend community suicide prevention walks. For some, these walks may be the only activities they participate in where suicide is the focus. It is quite possible that these survivors of suicide loss use walks as a way to make meaning from their losses. This study examines how these walks fit into survivors healing journeys and advocates for the use of resilience-based activities at these events to support positive meaning-making, affect regulation, and instill hope