Community-Based Settings and Sampling Strategies: Implications for Reducing Racial Health Disparities Among Black Men, New York City, 2010–2013

Introduction Rates of screening colonoscopies, an effective method of preventing colorectal cancer, have increased in New York City over the past decade, and racial disparities in screening have declined. However, vulnerable subsets of the population may not be reached by traditional surveillance and intervention efforts to improve colorectal cancer screening rates. Methods We compared rates of screening colonoscopies among black men aged 50 or older from a citywide random-digit–dial sample and a location-based sample focused on hard-to-reach populations to evaluate the representativeness of the random-digit–dial sample. The location-based sample (N = 5,568) was recruited from 2010 through 2013 from community-based organizations in New York City. Descriptive statistics were used to compare these data with data for all black men aged 50 or older from the 2011 cohort of the Community Health Survey (weighted, N = 334) and to compare rates by community-based setting. Results Significant differences in screening colonoscopy history were observed between the location-based and random-digit–dial samples (49.1% vs 62.8%, P \u3c .001). We observed significant differences between participants with and without a working telephone among the location-based sample and between community-based settings. Conclusions Vulnerable subsets of the population such as those with inconsistent telephone access are excluded from random-digit–dial samples. Practitioners and researchers should consider the target population of proposed interventions to address disparities, and whether the type of setting reaches those most in need of services

The Effects of Undergraduate Education Research on Our Lives: A Self-Study

As undergraduates, we are noticing our understanding of the teaching profession changing as we continue to engage more deeply in research. At Boise State University, it is uncommon for undergraduate education students to participate in research. We want to highlight how becoming researchers has been so influential in our preparation as future teachers and share how impactful we believe this could be for others studying to be teachers. Through our work, we hope to move towards a new definition of teaching as an intellectual profession that encompasses engagement in ongoing, meaningful research alongside the more traditional responsibilities of teachers. In order to further explore our experience and in the interest of sharing, we engaged in reflective self-study methods (Samaras & Freese, 2006; Nelson & Sadler, 2013; Valli, 1997; Schön, 1987; Bullough & Pinnegar, 2004). We examined and compared our individual experiences conducting research as undergraduates. We will discuss our process of engaging in self-study, our current roles within undergraduate educational research, as well as our findings