Posted by James
INTRODUCTION
Racial disparities have been observed in a variety of diseases, including cancer incidence and death rates, obesity prevalence and diabetes mellitus. Unfortunately, racial disparity also occurs in use of medical services, including screening for certain cancers and immunizations. The obvious question is why these disparities occur. Unequal access to care is clearly one reason; differing cultural beliefs, values and trust in the medical system are other reasons.
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Posted by James
Subject Recruitment
This was a cross-sectional analysis of subjects initially recruited for a study examining the association between SCD and dental caries. Recruited were African-American adults with SCD individually matched to non-SCD, African-American adults on age (±5 years), gender and recruitment location. African-American adults aged >18 years who were diagnosed with SCD were recruited from patients who were admitted to Howard University Hospital for sickle cell crisis in Washington, DC or from patients who attended the outpatient hematology clinic at Howard University Hospital. Adult African-American SCD patients were also recruited from the outpatient hematology clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. These locations were chosen based on the relatively large numbers of SCD patients that attend the outpatient hematology clinics at these hospitals.
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