Ethnicity & health
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This study aimed to understand the experiences of bilingual nurses asked to interpret in the Emergency Department (ED), and the subsequent impact on safety climate. Australian ED clinicians assess and treat high numbers of linguistically diverse patients, many with limited English proficiency. New South Wales Health policy mandates the use of accredited interpreters when collecting personal and health information, and when obtaining consent for medical procedures. ⋯ While some, (but not all) participants were aware of the interpreter policy, they were torn between their acknowledgement of risky translation practices and their desire to support their colleagues to provide timely, culturally-competent assessment and care. Findings suggests a 'top-down' approach to translation policy has failed to influence the local safety culture and practices and does not address a climate created by clinical urgency and workflow. Formal training and accreditation of bilingual nurses, and/or embedded interpreters for common language groups may reduce risks for non-English speaking patients.
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Transforming the landscape of American healthcare, COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on the African American community. African Americans are more likely to contract COVID-19, develop complications and die from the virus. Amid the growing research on COVID-19, this manuscript pays particular attention to African American women who are disproportionately represented as 'essential' or frontline workers, yet often lack job security and risk contagion. Faced with limited testing centers, they are also at risk of having their symptoms minimized or dismissed by medical practitioners even when they show visible symptoms of COVID-19. ⋯ This manuscript asserts that decades of racism and discrimination have isolated communities of color and made them particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. As many African American women deal with unemployment or continue to work as 'essential workers', the intersectionality framework sheds light on the continued legacies of racism and sexism. It asserts that targeted policy interventions are needed to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and lessen the devastating impact(s) it has had on African American communities.
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The objective of this study was to investigate potential county-level disparities among racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups in confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States in 100,000 population. ⋯ Identification of disproportionately impacted population groups can pave the way towards narrowing the disparity gaps and guide policymakers and stakeholders in designing and implementing population group-specific interventions to mitigate the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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To investigate how racial/ethnic density and residential segregation shape the uneven burden of COVID-19 in US counties and whether (if yes, how) residential segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic density and infections. ⋯ The pre-existing social structure like residential segregation may facilitate the spread of COVID-19 and aggravate racial/ethnic health disparities in infections. Minorities are disproportionately affected by the novel coronavirus and focusing on pre-existing social structures and discrimination in housing market may narrow the uneven burden across racial/ethnic groups.
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Comparisons of communities across cities are rare in social epidemiology. Our prior work exploring racial/ethnic segregation and the prevalence of low birth weight (LBW) in communities from two large urban cities showed a strong relationship in Chicago and a very weak relationship in Toronto. This study extends that work by examining the association between racial/ethnic minority segregation and LBW in total of 307 communities in five North American cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Toronto. ⋯ Across communities in the US cities in this analysis, there is considerable similarity in the strength of the effect of racial/ethnic segregation on LBW. Future work should incorporate communities from additional cities, looking to identify community assets and public policies that allow some minority communities to thrive, while other minority communities suffer from a high prevalence of LBW. More work is also needed on the generalizability of these patterns to other health outcomes.