HEALTH DISPARITIES BLOG

April 24, 2009

links for 2009-04-24

• Tennessee blacks' death rates of cancer explored
  There were 1.4 million Americans diagnosed with cancer last year. About 1,500 die daily from the disease nationwide, according to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. For black women, the cancer death rate is 41 percent higher than white women. For black men with prostate cancer, the death rate is 238 percent higher
• People with Disabilities Call for Global Equality
  The World Health Organization says roughly 600 million people worldwide have disabilities. Eighty percent of them live in developing nations where disabilities are often viewed as shameful.
• Black-White Differences in Avoidable Mortality in the United States, 1980-2005
  In 2005, medical care amenable mortality was the largest source of absolute black-white mortality disparity, contributing 30% of the black-white difference in all cause mortality among men and 42% among women
• When the Patient Gets Lost in Translation
  Doctors will triage their conversations with patients, categorizing discussions about advanced directives or risky medications as “high stakes,” and those that occur during routine rounding on a stable patient as “low stakes.” Doctors will then tend to use interpreters in “high stakes” conversations but will muddle through “low stakes” topics themselves, resorting to gestures, mimicry or bilingual family members in order to communicate.