OBJECTIVE This study compared the preventive oral health behaviors of African-Americans and whites. METHODS Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a probability sample of 384 African-American and 358 white adults living in the greater Detroit area. Questions focused on brushing, flossing, and dental visits. RESULTS More than 95 percent of both groups reported brushing daily; however, w...

OBJECTIVE To assess race-specific validity of food and food group intakes measured using an FFQ. DESIGN Calibration study participants were randomly selected from the Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) cohort by church, and then by subject-within-church. Intakes of forty-seven foods and food groups were assessed using an FFQ and then compared with intake estimates measured using six 24 h dietar...

BACKGROUND Arab Americans exhibit higher rates of hypertension and other cardiovascular risk factors relative to national averages. While research suggests some minorities may exhibit increased cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to, and slowed recovery from, stress compared to Whites, which may represent a risk factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease, this has not been studied in Arab A...

Published studies comparing the outcomes of black and white patients with alcohol dependence have produced mixed results. We hypothesized that among alcoholic outpatients blacks would have worse outcomes than whites. A sample of 38 blacks and 136 whites were assessed prospectively at baseline and 6-12 months using a naturalistic study design. At baseline, blacks had less education, employment, ...

OBJECTIVES We examined biological risk profiles by race, ethnicity, and nativity to evaluate evidence for a Hispanic paradox in measured health indicators. METHODS We used data on adults aged 40 years and older (n = 4206) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (1999-2002) to compare blood pressure, metabolic, and inflammatory risk profiles for Whites, Blacks, US-born and f...

BACKGROUND Conjoint Analysis (CA) can serve as an important tool to study health disparities and unique factors underlying decision-making in diverse subgroups. However, methodological advancements are needed in exploiting this application of CA. We compared the internal and external predictive validity and inter-temporal stability of Choice-based-Conjoint (CBC) analysis between African-America...

Blacks report lower marital quality and face a higher risk of marital dissolution than Whites, but little is known about how Hispanics compare to these two groups. We examine five dimensions of marital quality as well as marital dissolution for Blacks, Whites, and Mexican Americans using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N=6,231). Mexican Americans and Whites have simila...

This paper presents an ecological analysis of the relationship between infant mortality and economic status by race in metropolitan Ohio, using census data on mother's residence, and economic status determined by the percentage of low income families living in each area. White-non-white comparisons for total infant mortality are examined for the US censuses of 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990; and mor...

Blacks in comparison with whites are at risk for a more serious form of hypertension with high rates of complications. Greater sodium retention is thought to underlie the blood pressure (BP)-determining physiology of blacks, but specific mechanisms have not been identified. In a prospective observational study of BP, 226 black children and 314 white children (mean age, 10.6 years) were enrolled...

The purpose of the present study was to determine sympathetic vascular transduction in young normotensive black and white adults. We hypothesized that blacks would demonstrate augmented transduction of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) into vascular resistance. To test this hypothesis, MSNA, forearm blood flow, heart rate, and arterial blood pressure were measured during lower body negat...