A public health approach for Asian people with problem gambling in foreign countries

Author(s):  
Samson Tse ◽  
John Wong ◽  
Hyeeun Kim

There has been a rapid increase in Asian immigration to English-speaking countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Anecdotal accounts and research suggest high levels of participation in gambling by people from Asian countries. Asian problem gambling is seen as being a social rather than an individual problem compounded by difficulties with post-migration adjustment. Contemporary public health perspectives are not limited to the biological and behavioural dimensions, but can also address socioeconomic determinants such as income, employment, poverty, and access to social and healthcare services related to gambling and health. This paper discusses how a public health viewpoint can lead to effective strategies against problem gambling. The five principles proposed in this paper are: (1) acknowledging similarities and differences within Asian populations, (2) ensuring that strategies are evidence-based, (3) treating Asian problem gambling in an acculturation framework, (4) addressing the issue of shame associated with problem gambling among Asian people, and (5) targeting at-risk sub-groups.

Author(s):  
Thomas Simon ◽  
Kimberly Hurvitz

Violence, including child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence, is a significant public health problem in the United States. A public health approach can help providers understand the health burden from violence, evaluate evidence for prevention strategies, and learn where to turn for information about planning and implementing prevention strategies for this preventable problem. For the past three decades, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published “Healthy People” objectives for the next decade. The Healthy People 2020 initiative includes 13 measurable objectives related to violence prevention, one of which was selected as a Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator. Progress to achieve these objectives can save thousands of lives, reduce the suffering of victims and their families, and decrease financial cost to the law enforcement and healthcare systems. The role that nurses can and do play in violence prevention is critical and extends beyond just caring for victims to also include preventing violence before it happens. This article summarizes the violence prevention objectives in Healthy People 2020 and the resources for prevention available to support nurses and others as they move prevention efforts forward in communities to stop violence before it starts.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Emily F. Rothman

Pornography is being indicted as a public health crisis in the United States and elsewhere, but the professional public health community is not behind the recent push to address pornography as a public health threat. While pornography may not be contributing directly to mortality or acute morbidity for a substantial percentage of people, it may be influencing other public health problems, such as sexual violence, dating abuse, compulsive behavior, and sexually transmitted infections. However, the evidence to support pornography as a causal factor is mixed, and there are numerous other factors that have more strongly established associations with these outcomes of interest. Throughout history, repressive forces have inflated the charges against sexually explicit material in order to advance a morality-based agenda. Nevertheless, a public health approach and tried public health practices, such as harm reduction and coalition-building, will be instrumental to addressing the emergence of mainstream Internet pornography.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nan Yu ◽  
Shuya Pan ◽  
Chia-chen Yang ◽  
Jiun-Yi Tsai

BACKGROUND Media coverage and scholarly research have reported that Asian people who reside in the United States have been the targets of racially motivated incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to examine the types of discrimination and worries experienced by Asians and Asian Americans living in the United States during the pandemic, as well as factors that were associated with everyday discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination that the Asian community may face. METHODS A cross-sectional online survey was conducted. A total of 235 people who identified themselves as Asian or Asian American and resided in the United States completed the questionnaire. RESULTS Our study suggested that up to a third of Asians surveyed had experienced some type of discrimination. Pooling the responses “very often,” “often,” and “sometimes,” the percentages for each experienced discrimination type ranged between 14%-34%. In total, 49%-58% of respondents expressed concerns about discrimination in the future. The most frequently experienced discrimination types, as indicated by responses “very often” and “often,” were “people act as if they think you are dangerous” (25/235, 11%) and “being treated with less courtesy or respect” (24/235, 10%). About 14% (32/235) of individuals reported very often, often, or sometimes being threatened or harassed. In addition, social media use was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing discrimination (β=.18, <i>P</i>=.01) and having concerns about future episodes of discrimination the community may face (β=.20, <i>P</i>=.005). Use of print media was also positively associated with experiencing discrimination (β=.31, <i>P</i>&lt;.001). CONCLUSIONS Our study provided important empirical evidence regarding the various types of discrimination Asians residing in the United States experienced or worried about during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationship between media sources and the perception of racial biases in this group was also identified. We noted the role of social media in reinforcing the perception of discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination among Asians during this outbreak. Our results indicate several practical implications for public health agencies. To reduce discrimination against Asians during the pandemic, official sources and public health professionals should be cognizant of the possible impacts of stigmatizing cues in media reports on activating racial biases. Furthermore, Asians or Asian Americans could also be informed that using social media to obtain COVID-19 information is associated with an increase in concerns about future discrimination, and thus they may consider approaching this media source with caution.


Author(s):  
Asha Nadkarni

Asian American literature has capaciously explored the issues of gender, sexuality, and reproduction that have been so foundational to Asian American racial formation. It has likewise engaged, directly or indirectly, with “eugenics,” a pseudoscience by which nation states sought to improve their populations through managing reproduction. Eugenics, a term coined by Charles Darwin’s cousin Sir Francis Galton in 1883, spans the late 19th to the early 21st centuries, where it continues in the form of population control and the “new” eugenics of genetic and reproductive technologies. In some national sites eugenics was aligned with feminist movements for birth control, whereas in others, such as the United States, they were largely opposed. Nonetheless, eugenic feminists argued that women’s right reproduction was the necessary mechanism by which women should gain rights within the state; as a formation, moreover, eugenic feminism specifically targeted Asian American women as standing in the way of US feminist advance. As such, one of the key ways eugenics was practiced in the United States in relationship to Asian populations was through immigration policy. The history of Asian exclusion in the United States therefore speaks to a larger eugenic project predicated on the notion that Asian immigrants embodied a public health threat in terms of diseases and deviant sexualities of various sorts. The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act opened up Asian immigration to the United States and also gave rise to a new set of stereotypes, gendered and otherwise, about Asian Americans as model minorities. Asian American literature has critically mined these issues, with some Asian American literature acceding to eugenics by stressing an assimilationist politics and with other works challenging it by critiquing eugenics’ reproductive logic of purity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caryn Bern ◽  
Louisa A. Messenger ◽  
Jeffrey D. Whitman ◽  
James H. Maguire

SUMMARY Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease, usually transmitted by triatomine vectors. An estimated 20 to 30% of infected individuals develop potentially lethal cardiac or gastrointestinal disease. Sylvatic transmission cycles exist in the southern United States, involving 11 triatomine vector species and infected mammals such as rodents, opossums, and dogs. Nevertheless, imported chronic T. cruzi infections in migrants from Latin America vastly outnumber locally acquired human cases. Benznidazole is now FDA approved, and clinical and public health efforts are under way by researchers and health departments in a number of states. Making progress will require efforts to improve awareness among providers and patients, data on diagnostic test performance and expanded availability of confirmatory testing, and evidence-based strategies to improve access to appropriate management of Chagas disease in the United States.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Bradley Byington

Conspiracy theories, and especially antisemitic conspiracy theories, form a core ideological component of right-wing violent extremism in the United States. This article argues that conspiracy narratives and their psychological antecedents are key to understanding the ideological appeal of right-wing extremist formations such as white supremacist and Christian Identity movements, providing insight into the motivations and behaviors of those individual participants who become sufficiently radicalized to carry out terrorist actions. It is further proposed that standard radicalization models can be enhanced for applications specific to right-wing extremism through an understanding of conspiracy thinking (both antisemitic and otherwise), and that this understanding can assist in addressing the motivated roots of the ideologies that sustain this particular type of violent extremism through a public health approach to counter-radicalization that aims to “inoculate” the public against the cognitive tendencies exemplified in antisemitic con- spiracy theories and in conspiracist culture more generally. The proposed approach would complement existing efforts in a unique way, as it would have the potential not only to improve public security, but also to provide further societal benefits by countering other negative tendencies associated with conspiracy belief (for example, decreased intention to vaccinate). This would provide an exceptional cost versus benefit ratio while supporting existing counter-radicalization programs and leaving them intact.


Pained ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 163-166
Author(s):  
Michael D. Stein ◽  
Sandro Galea

This chapter discusses the smoking gap. Fifty years ago, smoking prevalence for all education groups was clustered at the 40%–45% mark. Five decades later, 6.5% of college-educated individuals continue to smoke, while the prevalence is more than triple that among those with a high school education or less (23.1%). These smokers tend to be disadvantaged socially and economically, and bear the majority of morbidity and premature mortality. As such, in the process of lowering smoking overall, people have created a smoking gap between those who are well-educated and those who are less educated, between those with higher and lower incomes. However, the smoking gap is not restricted only to socioeconomic status. Geography is also at play. “Tobacco Nation”—a swath across the American Southeast where 700 million pounds of tobacco are harvested annually, and rates of smoking remain higher than elsewhere—suggests that policy, culture, and the persistent influence of the tobacco industry in this region has shaped who smokes and who does not in the United States. Other studies have documented the high tobacco retailer density in neighborhoods with larger proportions of African Americans, the ethnic group with the highest smoking prevalence. The chapter then details what people can learn from the smoking gap and the best public health approach to reduce the smoking rate.


2021 ◽  
pp. 108876792110471
Author(s):  
Lauren A. Magee

Firearm violence is considered a public health crisis in the United States. Firearm violence spatially concentrates within neighborhoods and is associated with community factors; however, little is understood about the geographic differences in gunshot wound mortality and associated neighborhood social processes. Applying a public health approach through the Haddon’s Matrix, the results demonstrate systematic differences in social and physical features associated with gunshot mortality. These findings have important implications to improve neighborhood physical and social conditions, police transporting gunshot victims, and police-public health partnerships to improve data collection on nonfatal shootings and shots fired.


2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 65S-79S ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele R. Decker ◽  
Holly C. Wilcox ◽  
Charvonne N. Holliday ◽  
Daniel W. Webster

Violence is a leading source of morbidity and mortality in the United States. In this article, we suggest a public health framework for preventing community violence, intimate partner violence and sexual violence, and suicide as key forms of interpersonal and self-directed violence. These types of violence often co-occur and share common risk and protective factors. The gender, racial/ethnic, and age-related disparities in violence risk can be understood through an intersectionality framework that considers the multiple simultaneous identities of people at risk. Important opportunities for cross-cutting interventions exist, and intervention strategies should be examined for potential effectiveness on multiple forms of violence through rigorous evaluation. Existing evidence-based approaches should be taken to scale for maximum impact. By seeking to influence the policy and normative context of violence as much as individual behavior, public health can work with the education system, criminal justice system, and other sectors to address the public health burden of interpersonal violence and suicide.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document