The Role of Cultural Competency on Treatment Adherence and Health Literacy for Persons of Color Living with HIV/AIDS

The Role of Cultural Competency on Treatment Adherence and Health Literacy for Persons of Color Living with HIV/AIDS Rohan Arora, Depts. of Psychology, Medical Humanities, & Chemistry, with Dr. Faye Pritchard, VCU Honors College For decades, the American medical establishment has been a notable perpetrator in the mass marginalization of minority groups, leading to a variety of health disparities. Given that the existing healthcare institution is not culturally equipped to serve the evolving American demographic, experts have called for the greater usage of cultural competency in medicine; however, little research has been done to better understand how the degree of cultural competency of a health-care provider impacts the complex disease management for those living with HIV/AIDS. The aim of this research is to better understand how cultural competency can impact the health literacy and treatment adherence for persons of color living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to considering what factors shape patient experience and expectations, the research explores how many socioeconomic and cultural factors lead to low treatment adherence and health literacy. Also, the research considers the nuance in the patient-provider relationship and explores tools, such as partnerships with existing community institutions, that may strengthen the relationship. In order to regain the trust lost in the medical establishment by persons of color living with HIV/AIDS, the research suggests that a healthcare provider ought to self-reflect about the cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic complexities in America that necessitate cultural competency. By practicing modernized cultural competency in medicine, healthcare providers can shape patient care and strengthen the patient-provider relationship, which may increase treatment adherence and health literacy rates for persons of color living with HIV/AIDS. Bringing attention to how cultural competency can impact treatment adherence and health literacy, the research urges the medical establishment to take educational and policy-related steps to effectively provide healthcare to historically underserved groups such as people of color living with HIV/AIDS.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1353/thumbnail.jp

Metrics for analytics and visualization of big data with applications to activity recognition

Activity recognition systems detect the hidden actions of an agent from sensor measurements made on the agents' actions and the environmental conditions. For such systems, metrics are important for both performance evaluation and visualization purposes. In this thesis, such metrics are developed and illustrated. For human activity recognition datasets, a reporting structure is described to visualize the metrics in a systematic manner. The other contribution of this thesis is to describe a visualization tool for estimating the orientation (attitude) of a rigid body from streaming motion sensor (accelerometer and gyroscope) data. A feedback particle filter (FPF) is implemented algorithmically to solve the estimation problem

Repair of avulsion flap injury of heel by multiple point anchorage using Kirschner wires-a case series

The heel pad is a dense band of fibrous tissue with complex anatomy. Injuries to heel pad are uncommon but very challenging due to its precarious blood supply. In this study we tried fixing acute heel pad avulsion injuries using multiple Kirschner wires and results were evaluated according to the American orthopedic foot and ankle society hind foot score. Results were excellent for 3 -out of 9 patients and good for 6 patients according to the AOFAHS scoring system. Anchorage of acute heel pad avulsion injuries using multiple Kirschner wires is an effective and reliable treatment modality

Announcing the Bankers\u27 Acceptance Purchase Facility: a COVID”‘19 event study

Research paper studying the announcement effect of the BAPF using different estimation effects and treatment variable

The impact of the Bank of Canada\u27s Government Bond Purchase Program

article estimating the announcement and purchasing effects of the GBP

Examining the initial usability, acceptability and feasibility of a digital mental health intervention for college students in India

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156228/2/ijop12640_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156228/1/ijop12640.pd

The use of arm vein in lower-extremity revascularization: Results of 520 procedures performed in eight years

AbstractPurpose: The absence of an adequate ipsilateral saphenous vein in patients requiring lower-extremity revascularization poses a difficult clinical dilemma. This study examined the results of the use of autogenous arm vein bypass grafts in these patients. Methods: Five hundred twenty lower-extremity revascularization procedures performed between 1990 and 1998 were followed prospectively with a computerized vascular registry. The arm vein conduit was prepared by using intraoperative angioscopy for valve lysis and identification of luminal abnormalities in 44.8% of cases. Results: Seventy-two (13.8%) femoropopliteal, 174 (33.5%) femorotibial, 29 (5.6%) femoropedal, 101 (19.4%) popliteo-tibial/pedal, and 144 (27.7%) extension “jump” graft bypass procedures were performed for limb salvage (98.2%) or disabling claudication (1.8%). The average age of patients was 68.5 years (range, 32 to 91 years); 63.1% of patients were men, and 36.9% of patients were women. Eighty-five percent of patients had diabetes mellitus, and 77% of patients had a recent history of smoking. The grafts were composed of a single arm vein segment in 363 cases (69.8%) and of spliced composite vein with venovenostomy in 157 cases (30.2%). The mean follow-up period was 24.9 months (range, 1 month to 7.4 years). Overall patency and limb salvage rates for all graft types were: primary patency, 30-day = 97.0% ± 0.7%, 1-year = 80.2% ± 2.1%, 3-year = 68.9% ± 3.6%, 5-year = 54.5% ± 6.6%; secondary patency, 30-day = 97.0% ± 0.7%, 1-year = 80.7% ± 2.1%, 3-year = 70.3% ± 3.4%, 5-year = 57.5% ± 6.2%; limb salvage, 30-day = 97.6% ± 0.7%, 1-year = 89.8% ± 1.7%, 3-year = 82.1% ± 3.3%, 5-year = 71.5% ± 6.9%. Secondary patency and limb salvage rates were greatest at 5 years for femoropopliteal grafts (69.8% ± 12.8%, 80.7% ± 11.8%), as compared with femorotibial (59.6% ± 10.3%, 72.7% ± 10.5%), femoropedal (54.9% ± 25.7%, 56.8% ± 26.9%,) and popliteo-tibial/pedal grafts (39.0% ± 7.3%, 47.6% ± 15.4%). The patency rate of composite vein grafts was equal to that of single-vein conduits. The overall survival rate was 54% at 4 years. Conclusion: Autogenous arm vein has been used successfully in a wide variety of lower-extremity revascularization procedures and has achieved excellent long- and short-term patency and limb salvage rates, higher than those generally reported for prosthetic or cryopreserved grafts. Its durability and easy accessibility make it an alternative conduit of choice when an adequate saphenous vein is not available. (J Vasc Surg 2000;31:50-9.

Quasi-elastic scattering measurements of the 28Si + 142Nd system at back-angle

409-414The barrier distribution of a system can be extracted from excitation function data obtained either through fusion reaction or through quasi-elastic scattering measurement. In the present work, the quasi-elastic excitation function has precisely been measured at back angle for the 28Si + 142Nd system at energies around the Coulomb barrier and the corresponding experimental barrier distribution has been extracted. The experimental data has been interpreted in the frame work of the coupled channel calculations which include couplings to different possible modes of excitations of the interacting target-projectile combination. The possible effect of the nature of projectile excitations on the derived barrier distribution has been presented