African Americans and Increase Death Rate After Surgery February 18, 2009

The researchers at Center for Outcomes Research, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia conducted a study to review the reasons for improved survival after surgery in teaching hospitals had unexpected results. It is generally acknowledged that survival after surgery is higher at teaching hospitals (hospitals with medical students and physicians in training).  Teaching hospitals are generally felt to provide better care because they are larger, generally have advance technology, greater volume and better nursing staff.  Using medicare claims data the researchers were able to show that improved survival is because of lower mortality after complications (better failure to rescue) and generally not because of fewer complications. However, the high survival and failure to rescue results seen in white patients were not seen in black patients. It appears that black patients fare about equally well in teaching and nonteaching hospitals, whereas white patients have significantly better risk-adjusted mortality and failure to rescue at teaching hospitals than at nonteaching hospitals. The explaination for these findings are unclear.

In an earlier study by the same researchers found racial differences in the length of surgery for comparable procedures and income. Black medicare patients had surgery that took 29 minutes longer than whites. The authors suggested that Blacks tended to receive their surgeries from hospitals with longer procedure times.

http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/144/2/113

Yours In Good Health

National Black HIV Awareness Day February 7, 2009

 

February 7 is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which seeks to increase awareness of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among blacks living in the United States. In 2006, Blacks accounted for approximately 12% of the adolescent and adult U.S. population but 46% of people living with HIV. HIV incidence reports show that Blacks had the highest rates of new infections of any racial/ethnic group. Among black females, high-risk heterosexual contact accounted for 83% of the new infections. Among black males, male-to-male sexual contact accounted for 63% of the new infections.

Please speak to yourself and a loved one about the various high risk behaviors that can lead to transmit HIV.  HIV can be transmitted via sex and blood to blood transfer (cuts, sharing of needles, etc).

For addtional information about HIV, please review the following:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5804a1.htm?s_cid=mm5804a1_e

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5804a2.htm?s_cid=mm5804a2_e

Yours In Good Health

Dreadlocks April 1, 2008

What does dreadlocks have to do with the state of health care today? Nothing. I should more appropriately answer the question, nothing that I am aware of yet, but given that this is my blog I can write what I please. Today I choose dreadlocks.   If you have objections feel free to comment.

After taking a long break from the gym (longer than it should have been), I returned the other night.  While in the shower I overheard a conversation between 2 women discussing their hair.  I presume they were not African American based on their comments.  One lady commented to the other about how her hair had grown quite a bit in the past several months.  The other lady responded by saying that she had not washed her hair as much because she understood that Blacks with dreadlocks don’t wash their hair and that is why it grows so long in a short period of time.  After pulling my jaw up from the ground I decided I would investigate this absurdity.  The beginnings of an unscientific report because a true scientist is open to all results at the beginning of the investigation.  

In recent years dreadlocks have become increasingly popular and seemingly acceptable in the African American Community.  The acceptability of locks in the business world has been hotly debated.  Susan Taylor of Essences Magazine turned down a speaking engagement at Hampton University (a historically black college) because the university has a policy that stated that braids and dreadlocks were “unacceptable”.  Earl Graves of Black Enterprise Magazine wrote the following in his column “we must remove every reason – including things as superficial as our style of hair or dress ……… might have for not wanting to do business with us,”.  The National Football League even had something to say about dreadlocks, they found that dreadlocks had a direct correlation to concussions.  I thought it was a joke until I read why. Players were more likely to get concussions because of ill fitted or the wrong sized helmets.   

But I have strayed from my ease dropping shower story.  Other than the obvious fact that Blacks with dreadlocks do wash their hair (I have observational proof), the essence of the experience for me was to determine how much scientific data was available about dreadlock and/or Black hair.  I found hundreds of images of dreadlocks but extremely limited scientific data about dreadlocks.  The closest article was a small study done in Cape Town, South Africa that examined African hair length.  It revealed that combing African hair on a daily basis may be equivalent to a daily haircut.  There were a lot of blogs entries and magazine articles with suggestions about how to start and how to maintain your locks.      

Yours in Good Health

The State of the Black Union on Health Care February 28, 2008

 

This weekend I watched Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union (SOBU), a forum that is a discussion of the most important issues facing the African American community in the 21^st century.  The forum consist of 2 discussion panels and the panelist are some of the country’s most prominent visionaries, educators, public policy makers, religious leaders, opinion makers, and community organizers.  Two years ago SOBU developed a national plan of action to address the primary concerns of African Americans today — from health to housing, from crime to criminal justice, from education to economic parity which was published in a book, The Covenant with Black America.  The Covenant was a New York Times best seller without the media hype.  

The 2008 SOBU was very much anticipated by many in the African American community given the presence of an African American candidate in the presidential primary and The Covenant’s outlined goals for discussion.  Leading up to the forum much was made of Tavis Smiley’s invitation to all of the presidential candidates to appear on SOBU to discuss their positions on the issues laid out in The Covenant.  Senator Obama’s decision not to attend the event and Senator Clinton’s decision to attend drew significant media attention.  Tavis was widely criticized by many in the African American community for remarking on Senator Obama decision not to attend.  Tavis stated that SOBU would focus on the issues laid out in The Covenant and not engage in discussions solely around a particular personality or candidate.  The vast majority of the panel discussion was focused on the current political race and the democratic primary.  Health care, one of the Covenant’s priority issues was not discussed until the very end when Senator Clinton was asked about the differences between Senator Obama’s health plan and her own.   

I looked forward to the African American community engaging in a healthy dialog about health care in America but was disappointed by the lack of presence by key health care advocates, health care providers or policy makers.  The country for the first time, that I can remember, is not only paying attention to health care reform but is engaging in a real discussion about change in our health care system.  I can’t stress how important it is for the African American community to add their voices to this pivotal discussion that has such significant impact on the African American community.  African Americans have suffered greatly from social disparities, and has been documented to receive less than equal health care quality and access which has lead to major disparities in healthcare and health outcomes.

I encourage Tavis Smiley to make health care the number ONE priority in the 2009 State of the Black Union forum and invite the leading policy makers, activists and health care providers to address the health care crisis in our community. 

Yours in Good Health