Biomedical subjects

Barbara Brenner

Publications and source records attributed to Barbara Brenner.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Creating alliances to improve cancer prevention and detection among urban medically underserved minority groups. The East Harlem Partnership for Cancer Awareness.

The East Harlem Partnership for Cancer Awareness (EHPCA) was formed in 1999 to reduce disparities in cancer screening and prevention among medically underserved minorities residing in a large urban community (East Harlem, New York City) by increasing awareness of cancer risk, prevention, and treatment, and promoting greater participation in breast, cervical, colorectal, and prostate cancer screening and early detection. The Partnership augments a 20-year collaboration between an academic medical center, a public hospital, and 2 community health centers. Needs assessments were conducted to inform program development. Cancer education, outreach, and screening programs were developed based on the PRECEED-PROCEED model for health education and health promotion programming. Needs assessments revealed that although the majority of the population (86%) was insured and had a source of primary care, cancer screening guidelines for breast, cervical, prostate, and colorectal cancers were not being followed. Outreach strategies, targeted curricula, educational sessions, and screening programs have been developed and implemented to improve knowledge levels and increase screening participation. The EHPCA is a model of a successful partnership among the public and private sectors to reduce disparities in cancer screening and prevention in a diverse, medically underserved, urban minority community. Future efforts to reduce cancer screening disparities in this population will include patient navigation and improved access to standard-of-care screening such as colonoscopy. Cancer 2006. (c) 2006 American Cancer Society.

Black or African American↗

PubMed2005

Community-based participatory research: lessons learned from the Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research.

Over the past several decades there has been growing evidence of the increase in incidence rates, morbidity, and mortality for a number of health problems experienced by children. The causation and aggravation of these problems are complex and multifactorial. The burden of these health problems and environmental exposures is borne disproportionately by children from low-income communities and communities of color. Researchers and funding institutions have called for increased attention to the complex issues that affect the health of children living in marginalized communities--and communities more broadly--and have suggested greater community involvement in processes that shape research and intervention approaches, for example, through community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships among academic, health services, public health, and community-based organizations. Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research (Children's Centers) funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were required to include a CBPR project. The purpose of this article is to provide a definition and set of CBPR principles, to describe the rationale for and major benefits of using this approach, to draw on the experiences of six of the Children's Centers in using CBPR, and to provide lessons learned and recommendations for how to successfully establish and maintain CBPR partnerships aimed at enhancing our understanding and addressing the multiple determinants of children's health.

Child↗

PubMed2005

Occlusion effect of earmolds with different venting systems.

In this study the occlusion effect was quantified for five types of earmolds with different venting. Nine normal-hearing listeners and ten experienced hearing aid users were provided with conventional earmolds with 1.6 and 2.4 mm circular venting, shell type earmolds with a novel vent design with equivalent cross-sectional vent areas, and nonoccluding soft silicone eartips of a commercial hearing instrument. For all venting systems, the occlusion effect was measured using a probe microphone system and subjectively rated in test and retest sessions. The results for both normal-hearing subjects and hearing aid users showed that the novel vents caused significantly less occlusion than the traditional vents. Occlusion effect associated with the soft silicone eartip was comparable to the nonoccluded ear. Test-retest reproducibility was higher for the subjective occlusion rating than for the objectively measured occlusion. Perceived occlusion revealed a closer relationship to measured occlusion in the ear in which the measured occlusion effect was higher ("high OE" ear) than in the "low OE" ear. As our results suggest that subjective judgment of occlusion is directly related to the acoustic mass of the air column in the vent, the amount of perceived occlusion may be predicted by the vent dimensions.

Case-Control Studies↗

PubMed2002

Implementing a community intervention program for health promotion.

High rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among low income African American and Latinos are well documented. While health promotion interventions leading to personal behavior change are known to reduce CVD in white, middle class, more educated populations, these approaches have not been widely tested in poor, minority ethnic communities. This paper describes a community intervention program to reduce cardiovascular disease risk factors in East Harlem, a low income New York City community in Manhattan, whose population is 53% Latino and 39% African American. This primary prevention model seeks to change attitudes, norms and values regarding behaviors that contribute to chronic disease within a defined population through initiating changes in the social, educational, cultural and physical environment. Environmental and organizational conditions that predict successful outcomes for the model and strategies, methods and skills, borrowed from social work and other behavioral sciences to implement and institutionalize community wide lifestyle changes, are highlighted.

Black or African American↗

PubMedDate not supplied

An interdisciplinary approach to the provision of patient support resources across the oncology care continuum: description of a performance improvement project.

Cancer survival has improved, and more attention is now being focused on quality of life. Quality-of-life issues include the physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and financial aspects of caring. Because patient support services can play an important role in helping patients cope with their disease, they are critical to patients with cancer and their families. This article describes the methods used to address the need for patient support resources and identifies the process for identifying and evaluating existing resources and developing additional ones. The project goal was to streamline patient care access across the oncology care continuum from prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to end of life in ambulatory, hospital, and hospice settings.

Community Health Services↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The occlusion effect in unilateral versus bilateral hearing aids.

The benefit of bilateral hearing aids is well documented, but many hearing-aid users still wear only one aid. It is plausible that the occlusion effect is part of the reason for some hearing-aid users not wearing both hearing aids. In this study we quantified the subjective occlusion effect by asking ten experienced users of bilateral hearing aids and a reference group of ten normal-hearing individuals to rate the naturalness of their own voice while reading a text sample aloud. The subjective occlusion effect was evaluated in the unilateral versus bilateral condition for a variety of vent designs in earmolds and in a custom hearing aid. The subjective occlusion effect was significantly higher for bilateral hearing aids with all vent designs with the exception of a non-occluding eartip option. The subjective occlusion effect was reduced with the more open vent designs in both the unilateral and bilateral conditions. Assuming that the occlusion effect is a barrier to bilateral hearing aid use, these results indicate that open-hearing-aid fittings can help promote the use of two aids.

Acoustic Stimulation↗