Disease Constituencies

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Rachel Kahn Best
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Congressional Hearings ◽  
Disease Advocacy ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
New Type

In the second half of the twentieth century, disease advocacy evolved from universal campaigns to patients’ constituencies. Changes in the experience of health and illness and the nationwide expansion of political advocacy laid the groundwork for patient-led campaigns. Then, AIDS and breast cancer activists constructed a new type of disease advocacy on the foundations of the gay rights and women’s health movements. Unlike the earlier disease crusades, these movements were led by patients banding together to fight diseases that affected them personally, and they blazed a trail for patients suffering from other diseases. As patients’ activism became increasingly legitimate, disease nonprofits proliferated, patients took over congressional hearings, and disease walks and ribbons became an inescapable feature of American public life.

Organizing in the 1970s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily E. LB. Twarog
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Grocery Store ◽  
National Organization ◽  
Consumer Activism ◽  
Family Economy ◽  
The Family

In 1973, housewives in California launched what would be the last meat boycott of the twentieth century. And, like its predecessors, the 1973 boycott gained national momentum albeit with little political traction now that Peterson had left public life for a job in the private sector as the consumer advisor to the Giant grocery store chain. And in some quarters of the labor movement, activists drew very clear links between the family economy and the stagnation plaguing workers’ wages. The 1973 boycott led to the founding of the National Consumers Congress, a national organization intended to unite consumer organizers. While it was a short-lived organization, it demonstrates the momentum that consumer activism was building. This chapter also reflects on the lost coordinating opportunity between housewives organizing around consumer issues and the women’s movement in the 1970s.

scholarly journals The role of explanatory models of breast cancer in breast cancer prevention behaviors among Arab-Israeli physicians and laywomen

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Soffer ◽  
Miri Cohen ◽  
Faisal Azaiza
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Cluster Sampling ◽  
Cultural Perceptions ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Barriers To Screening ◽  
The North ◽  
Health And Illness

Abstract Background: ‘Explanatory Models’ (EMs) are frameworks through which individuals and groups understand diseases, are influenced by cultural and religious perceptions of health and illness, and influence both physicians and patients’ behaviors. Aims: To examine the role of EMs of illness (cancer-related perceptions) in physicians’ and laywomen’s behaviors (decision to recommend undergoing regular mammography, adhering to mammography) in the context of a traditional-religious society, that is, the Arab society in Israel. Methods: Two combined samples were drawn: a representative sample of 146 Arab physicians who serve the Arab population and a sample composed of 290 Arab women, aged 50–70 years, representative of the main Arab groups residing in the north and center of Israel (Muslims, Christians) were each randomly sampled (cluster sampling). All respondents completed a closed-ended questionnaire. Results: Women held more cultural cancer-related beliefs and fatalistic beliefs than physicians. Physicians attributed more access barriers to screening as well as fear of radiation to women patients and lower social barriers to screening, compared with the women’s community sample. Higher fatalistic beliefs among women hindered the probability of adherence to mammography; physicians with higher fatalistic beliefs were less likely to recommend mammography. Conclusions: The role of cultural perceptions needs to be particularly emphasized. In addition to understanding the patients’ perceptions of illness, physicians must also reflect on the social, cultural, and psychological factors that shape their decision to recommend undergoing regular mammography.

Book review: Sujata Mukherjee, Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women’s Health Care in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-456
Author(s):  
Bikash Das
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women’S Health ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Gender Medicine ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Women's Health Care ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Sujata Mukherjee, Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women’s Health Care in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), xxxv + 223 pp.

Abstract 13500: Association Between Breast Cancer and Cardiac Autonomic Function as Measured by Heart Rate Variability in the Women’s Health Initiative

Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Branch ◽  
Christopher L Schaich ◽  
Daniel Beavers ◽  
Elsayed Z Soliman ◽  
Kerryn Reding ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Heart Rate ◽  
Heart Rate Variability ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
Rr Intervals ◽  
Women's Health Initiative ◽  
Women’S Health Initiative ◽  
Health Initiative ◽  
Incident Breast Cancer ◽  
The Women’S Health Initiative

Background: Autonomic dysfunction (AD) as measured by heart rate variability (HRV) is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and breast cancer. No study has utilized a large prospective multi-center cohort of diverse women to assess differences in HRV associated with incident breast cancer. Objectives: To identify heart rate variability changes in women with breast cancer compared to controls in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). Methods: In a retrospective cohort study, we utilized 5,031 women in the WHI CT cohort who were breast cancer free at baseline and compared 1) those with incident breast cancer v. 2) those who were breast cancer free during the ECG follow-up period as controls. HRV was calculated utilizing 10-second ECG with two measures of two-domain HRV: standard deviation of all normal-to-normal RR intervals (SDNN) and the root mean square of successive differences in normal-to-normal RR intervals (rMSSD). HRV was measured from ECGs collected at baseline, years 3, 6, and 9 in the comparison groups. An adjusted mixed linear model was used to evaluate the differences in SDNN and rMSSD comparing women with incident breast cancer to controls. Cardiovascular risk factors utilized in the adjusted model were determined via questionnaire at baseline. Results: At baseline, women with incident breast cancer diagnosed by years 3, 6, or 9 were significantly older (median age 63 vs. 61, P<0.0001) and had a higher prevalence of hypertension (35% vs. 32%, P=0.02). SDNN at years 3 and 6 in women with breast cancer compared to controls was significantly lower (P=0.0002, P=0.03 respectively). As well, rMSSD was significantly lower at year 3 compared to controls (P<0.0001) ( Figure 1 ). Conclusions: HRV as a measure of AD is significantly lower in women with incident breast cancer compared to women without breast cancer. Reduction in HRV is associated with CVD outcomes in the literature. Our study suggests HRV may predict CVD in breast cancer patients.

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