Measuring Health in Jails: Limitations and Opportunities in Measurement of Health-Related Constructs

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-25
Author(s):  
Christine L. Arazan ◽  
Brianna A. Barrios ◽  
Meredith S. Brown ◽  
Natalia O. Dmitrieva

Limited research exists concerning measurement issues of health-related constructs among those incarcerated in American jails. This gap in the literature impedes research on health outcomes and health care access among jailed populations and may render the public health concerns of jailed populations hidden from societal view. The current article examines a research team's experience in conducting a related study (see Trotter et al. 2018) by highlighting the methodological limitations and opportunities faced during the study and provides suggestions for future research. The manuscript provides future researchers with a foundation for implementing health-focused studies within a jail, with special attention paid to the obstacles the research team overcame.

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiji Yamada ◽  
Ann Pobutsky

Increasing numbers of people from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are presenting for clinical and public health services across the U.S., especially in Hawaii. We review the impact of historical and contemporary relationships between the U.S. and these Freely Associated States on the health status and health care access of these migrants. We draw upon both epidemiological evidence and clinical experience to suggest measures to assure health care access and appropriate clinical care for these populations. We also point to potential public health measures, and indicate directions for future research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meagan Marie Daoust

The healthcare trend of parental refusal or delay of childhood vaccinations will be investigated through a complex Cynefin Framework component in an economic and educational context, allowing patterns to emerge that suggest recommendations of change for the RN role and healthcare system. As a major contributing factor adding complexity to this trend, social media is heavily used for health related knowledge, making it is difficult to determine which information is most trustworthy. Missed opportunities for immunization can result, leading to economic and health consequences for the healthcare system and population. Through analysis of the powerful impact social media has on this evolving trend and public health, an upstream recommendation for RNs to respond with is to utilize reliable social media to the parents’ advantage within practice. The healthcare system should focus on incorporating vaccine-related education into existing programs and classes offered to parents, and implementing new vaccine classes for the public.


2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Dreike Almer ◽  
Julia L. Higgs ◽  
Karen L. Hooks

The behavior of auditors in the context of their employment by public accounting firms has received significant attention in the accounting literature. The current article extends this literature by providing a framework that identifies what auditing professionals contribute and receive as a result of their work efforts, as well as related influences. Using agency theory modified with fundamental ideas from the sociology of professions literature, we develop a model of the auditor-public accounting firm employment relationship. This framework is grounded in a timely, contextually rich description of the public accounting work environment, and the pressures and incentives faced by auditors. Propositions for future research are suggested that arise from understanding the auditor-firm relationship.


Author(s):  
Cara C. Lewis ◽  
Enola K. Proctor ◽  
Ross C. Brownson

The National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the CDC, and a number of private foundations have expressed the need for advancing the science of dissemination and implementation. Interest in dissemination and implementation research is present in many countries. Improving health care requires not only effective programs and interventions, but also effective strategies to move them into community based settings of care. But before discrete strategies can be tested for effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, or cost effectiveness, context and outcome constructs must be identified and defined in such a way that enables their manipulation and measurement. Measurement is underdeveloped, with few psychometrically strong measures and very little attention paid to their pragmatic nature. A variety of tools are needed to capture health care access and quality, and no measurement issues are more pressing than those for dissemination and implementation science.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 860-860
Author(s):  
Britney Wardecker ◽  
Cara Exten

Abstract The number of sexual minority (SM) older adults is increasing rapidly, yet this population continues to be underrepresented in research (Fredriksen-Goldsen & Kim, 2017) and experiences significant disparities in health and health care access (Fredriksen-Goldsen, 2016; Wallace et al., 2011). In the current symposium, we analyze data from U.S. national probability samples of middle-aged and older adults (MIDUS, HRS, NESARC-III) to consider how age-related concerns and challenges may be experienced differently by SM individuals compared to their heterosexual counterparts. This symposium includes novel methods and statistical tools, such as daily diary assessments, multilevel modeling, and time-varying effects models. Individual presentations evaluate how: (1) SM women, compared to heterosexual women, may respond differently to menopause through norms and values surrounding womanhood; (2) midlife and older SM individuals use alcohol and cigarettes more frequently across a typical week than their heterosexual counterparts, though their substance use may not be tied to common triggers (e.g., negative mood, stress); (3) despite bisexual older adults reporting more health problems compared to lesbian and gay counterparts, they are less prepared for health concerns and crises (e.g., reporting a lower number of valid wills); and (4) the prevalence of depression and anxiety varies across age, such that older SM adults—especially women—are particularly vulnerable to psychological health problems. These presentations collectively examine complex issues facing older SM adults while emphasizing individual differences (i.e., women’s concerns, bisexual people’s issues). We discuss challenges in researching this growing at-risk population, and we highlight areas of future research and intervention.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Sarah Marshall

Purpose Ideas of health-related deservingness in theory and practise have largely been attached to humanitarian notions of compassion and care for vulnerable persons, in contrast to rights-based approaches involving a moral-legal obligation to care based on universal citizenship principles. This paper aims to provide an alternative to these frames, seeking to explore ideas of a human rights-based deservingness framework to understand health care access and entitlement amongst precarious status persons in Canada. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from theoretical conceptualizations of deservingness, this paper aims to bring deservingness frameworks into the language of human rights discourses as these ideas relate to inequalities based on noncitizenship. Findings Deservingness frameworks have been used in public discourses to both perpetuate and diminish health-related inequalities around access and entitlement. Although, movements based on human rights have the potential to be co-opted and used to re-frame precarious status migrants as “undeserving”, movements driven by frames of human rights-based deservingness can subvert these dominant, negative discourses. Originality/value To date, deservingness theory has primarily been used to speak to issues relating to deservingness to welfare services. In relation to deservingness and precarious status migrants, much of the literature focuses on humanitarian notions of the “deserving” migrant. Health-related deservingness based on human rights has been under-theorized in the literature and the authors can learn from activist movements, precarious status migrants and health care providers that have taken on this approach to mobilize for rights based on being “human”.


2001 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 796-801 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOWARD KATOR ◽  
MARTHA RHODES

Declining oyster (Crassostrea virginica) production in the Chesapeake Bay has stimulated aquaculture based on floats for off-bottom culture. While advantages of off-bottom culture are significant, the increased use of floating containers raises public health and microbiological concerns, because oysters in floats may be more susceptible to fecal contamination from storm runoff compared to those cultured on-bottom. We conducted four commercial-scale studies with market-size oysters naturally contaminated with fecal coliforms (FC) and a candidate viral indicator, F-specific RNA (FRNA) coliphage. To facilitate sampling and to test for location effects, 12 replicate subsamples, each consisting of 15 to 20 randomly selected oysters in plastic mesh bags, were placed at four characteristic locations within a 0.6- by 3.0-m “Taylor” float, and the remaining oysters were added to a depth not exceeding 15.2 cm. The float containing approximately 3,000 oysters was relaid in the York River, Virginia, for 14 days. During relay, increases in shellfish FC densities followed rain events such that final mean levels exceeded initial levels or did not meet an arbitrary product end point of 50 FC/100 ml. FRNA coliphage densities decreased to undetectable levels within 14 days (16 to 28°C) in all but the last experiment, when temperatures fell between 12 and 16°C. Friedman (nonparametric analysis of variance) tests performed on FC/Escherichia coli and FRNA densities indicated no differences in counts as a function of location within the float. The public health consequences of these observations are discussed, and future research and educational needs are identified.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mário Scheffer ◽  
Saurabh Saluja ◽  
Nivaldo Alonso

The current article examines surgical care as a public health issue and a challenge for health systems organization. When surgery fails to take place in timely fashion, treatable clinical conditions can evolve to disability and death. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery defined indicators for monitoring sustainable universal access to surgical care. Applied to Brazil, the global indicators are satisfactory, but the supply of surgeries in the country is marked by regional and socioeconomic inequalities, as well as between the public and private healthcare sectors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-200
Author(s):  
W.B. Worthen

The signal modality of theatrical production during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21 has been Zoom theatre. While Zoom theatre responds to public health concerns regarding virus transmission, it also articulates a vision of performance at the intersection of the public and the private, at the juncture between theatre and electronic media, and as a representation of theatre as a humanizing technology. Theatre has suggestively foregrounded new technologies under the sign of obsolescence, and in the affective register of nostalgia.


2021 ◽  
pp. e1-e10
Author(s):  
Rishi K. Sood ◽  
Jin Yung Bae ◽  
Adrienne Sabety ◽  
Pui Ying Chan ◽  
Caroline Heindrichs

Objectives. To evaluate the effectiveness of a novel health care access program (ActionHealthNYC) for uninsured immigrants. Methods. The evaluation was conducted as a randomized controlled trial in New York City from May 2016 through June 2017. Using baseline and follow-up survey data, we assessed health care access, patient experience, and health status. Results.At baseline, 25% of participants had a regular source of care; two thirds had visited a doctor in the past year and reported 2.5 visits in the past 12 months, on average. Nine to 12 months later, intervention participants were 1.2 times more likely to report having a primary care provider (58% vs 46%), were 1.2 times more likely to have seen a doctor in the past 9 months (91% vs 77%), and had 1.5 times more health care visits (4.1 vs 2.9) compared with control participants. Conclusions. ActionHealthNYC increased health care access among program participants. Public Health Implications. State and local policymakers should build on the progress that has been made over the last decade to expand and improve access to health care for uninsured immigrants. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print June 10, 2021: e1–e10. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306271 )


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