scholarly journals The Ramifications of Covid-19 Within the African American Community

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
Libby Goodman ◽  
Fayetta Lake ◽  
Chinyere Maureen Ndu
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
African American Population ◽  
General Article ◽  
Perceived Reasons ◽  
Healthcare Leaders

The coronavirus (Covid-19) perplexed many aspects of everyday life. Sadly, Covid-19 took a greater toll on African Americans. As Covid-19 developed, medical professionals, health care authorities, and advocates recognized several day-to-day living situations and intrinsic medical conditions that distressed African Americans with higher mortality rates during the pandemic. It is imperative that healthcare leaders understand the ramifications that have occurred and that may continue to surface from the Covid-19 affliction, which could be utilized to adjust and amend current policy surrounding the adversely affected African American population. We explored several substantial questions regarding this pandemic: the perceived reasons for the vast impact of Covid-19 within the African American culture; and what recommendations are needed to aid healthcare leaders in the fight against Covid-19 within the African American community. There are six ramifications that the authors address in this general article, including- employment, poverty, deaths, mental illness, and distrust. We offer suggestions to implement, prevent, and educate the African American public to circumvent these ramifications for present and future pandemics.

Consequences of a match made in hell: the harm caused by menthol smoking to the African American population over 1980–2018

2021 ◽  
pp. tobaccocontrol-2021-056748 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mendez ◽  
Thuy T T Le
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Smoking Initiation ◽  
African American Community ◽  
American Population ◽  
The Public ◽  
African American Population ◽  
Menthol Cigarettes ◽  
Life Years

BackgroundFor many years, national surveys have shown a consistently disproportionately high prevalence of menthol smokers among African Americans compared with the general population. However, to our knowledge, no prior study has quantified the harm that menthol smoking has caused on that population. In this work, we estimate the public health harm that menthol cigarettes have caused to the African American community over the last four decades.MethodsUsing National Health Interview Survey data, we employed a well-established simulation model to reproduce the observed smoking trajectory over 1980–2018 in the African American population. Then, we repeat the experiment, removing the effects of menthol on the smoking initiation and cessation rates over that period, obtaining a new hypothetical smoking trajectory. Finally, we compared both scenarios to calculate the public health harm attributable to menthol cigarettes over 1980–2018.ResultsOur results show that menthol cigarettes were responsible for 1.5 million new smokers, 157 000 smoking-related premature deaths and 1.5 million life-years lost among African Americans over 1980–2018. While African Americans constitute 12% of the total US population, these figures represent, respectively, a staggering 15%, 41% and 50% of the total menthol-related harm.DiscussionOur results show that menthol cigarettes disproportionally harmed African Americans significantly over the last 38 years and are responsible for exacerbating health disparities among that population. Removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit the overall US population but, particularly, the African American community.

scholarly journals Race War Flares Up: Chicago’s Swedish Press, the Great Migration, and the 1919 Riots

2019 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Ulf Jonas Björk
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
English Language ◽  
African American Community ◽  
American Population ◽  
African American Population ◽  
The North ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Race War

This study of the three large Swedish-language weeklies in Chicago examines how they covered the city’s African-American community during the latter half of the 1910s, a time when blacks migrated to the North in huge numbers. In Chicago, the result was that the African-American population almost tripled between 1910 and 1920. Little of that was visible in the columns of the weeklies, however, with only a handful of items telling readers that blacks were arriving in record numbers. What news there was about African-Americans, moreover, tended to portray them as criminals. Consequently, the riots that shook Chicago in late July 1919 seemed to take the editors of the weeklies by surprise. A major explanation for the Swedish weeklies’ coverage was that they relied almost exclusively on the city’s English-language dailies for news that did not concern their own ethnic group and thus mirrored the negative way the dailies portrayed African-Americans.

Emancipation and Free African Americans

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Archer
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
New England ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
African Descent ◽  
American Population ◽  
African American Population ◽  
Free African Americans

Except in parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, slavery was a peripheral institution, and throughout New England during and after the Revolution there was widespread support to emancipate slaves. Some of the states enacted emancipation laws that theoretically allowed slavery to continue almost indefinitely, and slavery remained on the books as late as 1857 in New Hampshire. Although the laws gradually abolished slavery and although the pace was painfully slow for those still enslaved, the predominant dynamic for New England society was the sudden emergence of a substantial, free African American population. What developed was an even more virulent racism and a Jim Crow environment. The last part of the chapter is an analysis of where African Americans lived as of 1830 and the connection between racism and concentrations of people of African descent.

scholarly journals The Effect of Social Class on Political Party Affiliations in the African American Community

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindiso Mafico
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Social Class ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Political Party ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Economic Class ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Political Party Affiliation

Does social class affect political party affiliation in the African-American community? Drawing on two contrasting theories: the theory of group interests and class-based theories of stratification put forth by Wilson and Shelton (2006), I propose that African -Americans who report being of a high socio-economic class are more likely to be Republican than African Americans of a lower socio-economic class. Through secondary analysis of data provided by the General Social Survey (GSS), I investigate the relationship between political party affiliation and social class in the African-American community. By combining data across 20 years between 1996 and 2016, the sample size is 1557 African-Americans. Measures of socio-economic status are limited to a single variable that asks respondents about their subjective social class, while the dependent variable was operationalized by a variable that inquires the respondent's political party affiliation. Multiple regression analysis reveals that there is no statistically significant relationship between social class and political party affiliation. There is however, a relationship between political party affiliation and another measure of social class, specifically the respondents' level of education. The strongest predictor of political party affiliation is the age of the respondents which gives insight on future voting patterns in the African-American community. While the hypothesis is not supported, the results shed light on the potential reasons for increased support for the Republican Party among African-Americans and could be used to predict voting outcomes among African-Americans for future elections.

Spirituality among African Americans

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-176
Author(s):  
Jason E. Shelton
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
National Survey ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Spiritual But Not Religious ◽  
Blacks And Whites

This chapter assesses the importance of spirituality among African Americans. More specifically, it examines the extent to which respondents in a large, multiyear national survey view themselves as a “spiritual person.” Four sets of comparative analysis are offered: (1) racial differences among black and white members of various evangelical Protestant traditions, (2) racial differences among black and white members of various mainline Protestant and Catholic traditions, (3) denominational differences specifically among African Americans, and (4) racial differences among blacks and whites who view themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” The findings reveal significant interracial and intraracial differences in how spirituality shapes one’s personal identity. Because organized religion has historically been so central to African American community life, the implications for the growth in noninstitutional spirituality are considered.

The Bible in African American Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Descendants ◽  
King James Bible ◽  
British Colonies

The chapter explores the motivations for the use of the Christian Bible in distinctive temporal arcs within African American culture. Initially, the chapter acknowledges the oddity of an African American affinity with the Bible because that Bible was deployed to support the enslavement and perpetual exploitation of African descendants in the British colonies that later became the United States. Then, it articulates three reasons for the aforementioned affinity: the availability of the Bible (especially the King James Bible) to provide a language world for personal and collective expression; the versatility or pliability of the Bible in the imagination of African Americans as they repeatedly and creatively read their own identities through the struggles of the characters of the Bible; and the perceived persuasiveness of the Bible in some of the heated debates with which the larger US public has been engaged since its inception.

scholarly journals How 'Afro-Americanophilia' became Polyphilia: Joachim-Ernst Berendt’s Journey from Jazz to “Weltmusik”

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Wright Hurley
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
World Music ◽  
West Germany ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
African American Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
1960S And 1970S

This article contributes to our understanding of the continuities and disconnects in the way that ‘race,’ and in particular African-American culture, were conceived of in the long postwar era in West Germany. It does so by examining some salient racial aspects in the writings and production activities of West-German ‘jazz pope,’ Joachim-Ernst Berendt, between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s. I demonstrate that the late 1960s brought about a sharpening in talk concerning the racial ‘ownership’ of jazz, and that in these circumstances, Berendt proceeded beyond his earlier, liberal elaborations about jazz, race, and African-Americans to advance an inclusive, ecumenical model of ‘Weltmusik’ (world music). Germany’s National Socialist history figured in important ways in his conception of both jazz and then Weltmusik. Whilst he initially saw jazz as an antidote to National Socialism, by the late 1960s and 1970s, he regarded certain traits of jazz discourse to be, themselves, proto-fascist.  Far from being a boon, Afro-Americanophilia—or at least one strain of it—now became something from which to distance oneself. What was important for Berendt, as for others of his generation, was distance from the past, as much as seeking out racial Others in Germany, engaging with them on their own terms, and yielding to a new racial ‘relationships of representation’ (Stuart Hall). 

Public Opinion toward Equal Opportunity Issues: The Role of Attitudinal and Demographic Forces among African Americans

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 705-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terri Susan Fine
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Opinion Dynamics ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Disadvantaged Populations ◽  
The Impact

This paper explores African American opinion toward equal opportunity issues using a demographic-attitudinal focus. Previous explorations have focused on black-white opinion comparisons. In this analysis, attitudinal forces, particularly core values, are identified as playing an influential role in policy support. Further, these patterns of values tend to reflect those expressed by whites on similar questions: the more individualistic and conservative one is, the less likely one is to support government intervention on African Americans behalf. In responding to questions concerning governmental responsibility, higher SES African Americans express stronger support than do their lower SES counterparts. This finding suggests that those who are experiencing “glass ceilings” are concerned about government guarantees of equal opportunity, despite their individualistic beliefs. This is inconsistent with previous explorations that analyze these beliefs among disadvantaged populations. The implications of social changes in the African American community and the impact of these changes on opinion dynamics are discussed.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Almeda M. Wright
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Young People ◽  
Black Church ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
Highly Active

Young African Americans regularly experience racism, poverty, sexism, violence, and other affronts to their humanity. Though they are often highly active and vocal contributors to their churches, schools, and neighborhood communities, they are often silent about the possibility of God working to address the injustices in their lives. The disconnection between the issues young people face, their community involvement, and their conceptions of God point toward the pervasiveness of “fragmented” spirituality among African American youth. Spiritual fragmentation does not necessarily inhibit healthy development or functioning. However, the African American community and church are at risk if they fail to challenge the myth that the personal and the communal or the spiritual and political are in fact disconnected. But why are African American Christian adolescents experiencing spiritual fragmentation? Is spiritual fragmentation symptomatic of an irreparable chasm between the Black church and Black youth? Or are there other factors at play?

Pegylated Liposomal Doxorubicin (PLD), Vincristine and Reduced-Dose Dexamethasone (DVd) in the Treatment of Predominantly African American Population with Multiple Myeloma.

Blood ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 108 (11) ◽  
pp. 5105-5105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshul Bamrolia ◽  
Ahmad Jajeh ◽  
R. Catchatourian ◽  
David Osafo ◽  
Deimante Tamkus ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Myeloma ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Liposomal Doxorubicin ◽  
Mononuclear Phagocytes ◽  
Disease Stage ◽  
Phospholipid Vesicle ◽  
American Population ◽  
African American Population

Abstract Biologic therapy is emerging as first line therapy for multiple myeloma. However, most patients will require multiple lines of treatments and chemotherapy remains a very good option. In the last few years, there has been an important recognition of potentially different responses to pharmaceuticals based on genetic predisposition, starting with the FDA advisory panel recommending approval of a heart failure drug for African Americans. Liposomal doxorubicin (DOXIL; PLD) is a microscopic pegylated phospholipid vesicle with a core containing conventional doxorubicin. The pegylated coat protects the liposomes from detection by mononuclear phagocytes, increasing blood circulation time (t1/2=55 hours). Due to its prolonged half life, PLD provides a similar effect to using continuous infusion doxorubicin, but administered over 1-hour, transforming the regimen into an outpatient treatment. PLD has also been shown to have a significantly better safety profile than conventional doxorubicin. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of DVd in a predominantly African American population. A phase II trial using DVd was started in October 2000(PLD 40 mg/m2, vincristine 2 mg IVP and dexamethasone 40 mg PO 1-4 d every 4-weeks). Thirty-four patients have received DVd (15 males/19 females: mean age 59 years [range 42–77]) (five patients were off-study but received DVd per protocol). The majority of patients are African American (70%), a patient population not commonly studied. Patients presented with relatively advanced disease (stage II–III). Baseline mean serum albumin level was 3.5 mg/dl (range 1.8 to 4.9), beta-2 microglobulin 4.09 (range 1.0–8.97). Seventeen patients had IgG Kappa, seven patients had IgG lambda, six patients had IgA and four patients had light chain disease. Twenty five patients completed six cycles of therapy, with two patients completing five cycles. Six patients underwent autologous bone marrow transplant following their response to DVd. Response was assessed on the basis of a reduction of the paraprotein in serum or urine that lasted for at least six weeks. A response was achieved in 27 patients of whom 15 had a CR or nCR. 2 patients had stable disease, and disease progressed in four patients based on Blade Response Assessment. One patient died before response could be assessed. Median follow up is 36 months (range 3 months to 5 years). Our median time to progression is approximately 1 year. Twenty four patients are still alive, one patient has been lost to follow up and nine deaths have occurred. Four early deaths were due to disease progression and sepsis. Three of the early deaths had amyloidosis. Two died after one year of therapy due to progressive refractory disease. One died after the second cycle because of sudden cardiac death with sepsis. No episodes of cardiac dysfunction were observed. For African Americans, who have a high incidence of hypertension, renal and cardiovascular disease, a cardiac safer liposomal doxorubicin may be the preferred form of anthracyline.

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