EthnicMajority

California’s population is much more racially and ethnically diverse than its physicians, according to a report by the Center for California Health Workforce Studies. That’s a concern, the study stated, because minority physicians play a key role in the minority community’s access to care.

The report found that Hispanics made up 32% of the state’s general population but only 5% of its practicing physicians. Blacks accounted for 7% of the population and 3% of physicians. Native Americans were 1% of the population and 0.6% of physicians.

As a group, Asian and Pacific Islanders were not underrepresented, making up 11% of the general population and 26% of physicians. However, there were shortages in Asian subgroups such as the Hmong, Samoans and Cambodians.

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Legal scholars, health-care advocates and public officials participating in the Freedom’s Voice Conference in April depicted a health and prison crisis that is limiting opportunities for people of color and devastating our communities. The three-day conference, which was sponsored by the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Community Voices program, offered recommendations on how to address many of the problems. But the esteemed panelists also sent a clear message that there must be decisive action to reverse public policies sending record numbers of people to prison, leaving those outside prison walls without access to health care and restricting people of color to segregated communities.

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The so-called war on drugs in the United States disproportionately targets racial minorities in urban neighborhoods, two reports said Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch and the judicial equality advocacy group The Sentencing Project announced the release of two reports Tuesday on drug-related arrests saying the so-called war on drugs “disproportionately targets urban minority neighborhoods.”

The Human Rights Watch report, “Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States,” outlines statistics in 34 states saying more black offenders serve prison sentences than white offenders.

The report says the average across those 34 states found black men are 11.8 times more likely to serve time in prison than white men and black women are 4.8 times as likely to be sent to jail than white women.

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The study about midlife women’s attitudes toward physical activity is now conducted through Internet.

Eligible participants for this study is midlife women aged 40 to 60 years old who do not have any mobility problems; who can read and write English; who are online; and whose self-reported ethnic identity is Hispanic, non-Hispanic (N-H) White, N-H African American, or N-H Asian.

The tangible benefit of participation is a $10 Target gift certificate for each
person who completes an Internet survey and a $50 Target gift certificate for
each person who participates in the online forum later.

For more information, please follow this link:  http://mapa.nur.utexas.edu/MAPA/

Researchers are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of a study drug to treat asthma in the African American population.

You may qualify to participate if you:

·        Are African American (both parents identified as African American)

·        Are 12 years of age or older

·        Take asthma medication daily

Qualified study participants will receive study-related drug and medical care at no charge. Reimbursement for time and travel may be provided. Health insurance is not needed to participate.

For more information and a free pre-screening, please visit www.asthmaclinicaltrials.com or call 800-280-7155

Teenage girls and their parents need to read the latest government study of sexually transmitted diseases. The infections are so prevalent they are hard to avoid once a girl becomes sexually active. One in four girls ages 14 to 19 is infected with at least one of four common diseases. Among African-American girls in the study, almost half were infected.

The data, drawn from a sample of 838 girls who participated in a broad national survey in 2003-4, was presented last week by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By far the most common of the four S.T.D.’s was the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which infected 18 percent of the girls. Chlamydia infected 4 percent, trichomoniasis — a common parasite — 2.5 percent, and genital herpes 2 percent.

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A CDC study on domestic violence released earlier this month found there was a significantly higher number of intimate partner violence (IPV) cases among minorities.

But some Penn State staff said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) research is not consistent with their knowledge of domestic violence.

The CDC study found that multiracial, non-Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native women reported more cases, defined IPV as a threat, and were victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse from a former or current partner on at least one occasion.

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Now he does, but it’s too late: White, a 61-year-old African-American from a suburb of Madison, Wis., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s more than four years ago when he was in his late 50s and lost his job as a parole officer because of the memory loss.

A survey of more than 2,000 people nationwide, including 1,210 black Americans, shows most people don’t know about the connection between cardiovascular conditions and the risk for dementia.

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Minority women have a 65 percent chance of getting breast cancer, says a recent study conducted by the Northern California Cancer Center and Stanford University. Responsible for this alarming percentage is the BRCA1 gene, which appears to present abnormal mutations in Ashkenazi Jew women, as well as in Hispanic and African-American women, according to latest studies.

The new cancer research showed that although everyone carries the BRCA1 gene, it is not harmful in any way. On the contrary, it is responsible for making a protein that helps cells repair DNA. The problems appear though when the gene suffers a mutation, which will consequently increase the chance to produce cancer.

According to these studies, focused on multiracial subjects, 8.3 percent of the Ashkenazi Jew females with breast cancer have a mutated BRCA1 gene, while the prevalence of the mutation in other minorities, although not as big, still raises concerns: 3.5 percent for Hispanic women, 2.2 percent in non-Hispanic white women, 1.3 percent among African-American and 0.5 percent of Asian-Americans.

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The first statistics ever amassed on HIV in the District, released today in a sweeping report, reveal “a modern epidemic” remarkable for its size, complexity and reach into all parts of the city.

The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV’s impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American.

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