OBJECTIVE To calculate the prevalence of substance abuse and mental illness among suicide victims of different racial/ethnic groups and to identify race/ethnicity trends in mental health and substance abuse that may be used to improve suicide prevention. METHODS Data are from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a state-based data integration system that, for 2004, includes da...

BACKGROUND Although nearly 112 million residents of the United States belong to a non-white ethnic group, the literature about differences in health indicators across ethnic groups is limited almost exclusively to Hispanics. Features of the social experience of many ethnic groups including immigration, discrimination, and acculturation may plausibly influence mortality risk. We explored life ex...

Background and Purpose—Mexican Americans are the largest subgroup of Hispanic Americans, now the most numerous US minority population. We compared access to care, acculturation, and biological risk factors among Mexican American and non-Hispanic white stroke patients and the general population. Methods—The Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi project is a population-based stroke surveill...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Hispanic patients undergoing chronic dialysis are less likely to receive a kidney transplant compared with non-Hispanic whites. This study sought to elucidate disparities in the path to receipt of a deceased donor transplant between Hispanic and non-Hispanic whites. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Using the US Renal Data System, 417,801 Caucasians who i...

Despite extensive research examining the correlates of unintended fertility, it remains a puzzle as to why racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to experience an unintended birth than non-Hispanic whites. This paper focuses on sexual literacy, a potential precursor of unintended fertility. Analyses use a unique dataset of unmarried young adults aged 18-29, the 2009 Survey of Unmarried Yo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Mexican Americans are the largest subgroup of Hispanic Americans, now the most numerous US minority population. We compared access to care, acculturation, and biological risk factors among Mexican American and non-Hispanic white stroke patients and the general population. METHODS The Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi project is a population-based stroke survei...

Stomach cancer incidence rates vary by ethnic group in New Mexico, with American Indians and Hispanic Whites at higher risk than the state's non-Hispanic White population. To further characterize the descriptive epidemiology of this disease in New Mexico, we investigated temporal trends in stomach cancer mortality and incidence rates. Stomach cancer mortality rates declined over a 25-year perio...

OBJECTIVE To determine the risk of motor vehicle occupant deaths per unit of travel for Hispanic, non-Hispanic black, and non-Hispanic white children (aged 5-12 years) and teenagers (aged 13-19 years). DESIGN Comparison of 1989 to 1993 motor vehicle occupant death rates of children and teenagers by race, ethnicity, and sex by using data on mortality from the National Center for Health Statist...

OBJECTIVE Few studies have compared treatment outcomes of African-American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white patients with bipolar disorder. The U.S. Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder compared one-year outcomes for bipolar I or II disorder from each of these racial-ethnic groups. METHODS African Americans (N=155) were retrospectively compared with a matched group o...

BACKGROUND Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and minorities have the worst survival. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying survival disparities have not been elucidated. METHODS In a retrospective study, we assessed association between HNSCC early death (<2 years) and 208 somatic mutations of 10 cancer-related genes in 214 patients:...