A Note from the Editors
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February 2005 marks 79th annual celebration of black history, a celebration of the contributions that people of African descent have made to the United States for over five centuries. As Dr. Henrik Clarke (Maa Khrew), African American scholar, activist, historian and writer, wrote:
History is a Clock that People use to tell Their political and cultural time of day It is also a compass that people use To find themselves on a map of Human Geography The role of History is to tell a People What they have been, where they have been What they are and where they are The most important role that history plays Is that is has the function of telling a People Where they still must go And what they still must be
In recognition of Black History Month, the Journal urges our readers to celebrate, to reflect, to honor and to remember these contributions.
We are also pleased to launch a new Journal column in this issue. Titled Heroes and Great Ideas, this column will feature descriptive accounts of people who have inspired others who live, work or study in medically underserved communities and of programs that have solved some of the numerous daunting challenges faced by members of these communities who seek to receive or provide optimal health and health care. The inaugural column, by Dr. Rueben C. Warren, honors three African American dentists—Clifton O. Dummett, Theodore E. Bolden and Joseph L. Henry—whose trailblazing early to late twentieth century careers have inspired him and many, many others.
This issue's Guest Editorial, by Dr. Ricardo A. Frazer, on affirmative action in medical school admissions is also fitting for Black History Month. Bringing the perspective of a psychologist to a subject often dominated by legal scholars, Dr. Frazer problematizes the importance of standardized test scores in medical school admissions and argues in favor of a balanced set of admission criteria that take account of a much broader array of qualities that engender success as a physician.
Race and/or ethnicity are in the foreground of a number of papers in the present issue. Alvidrez et al., in a study of individuals with dual mental health and substance abuse diagnoses, found that blacks were less likely than whites to receive mental health treatment and whites were less likely than blacks to receive drug treatment, [End Page v] despite the fact that the population studied consisted only of individuals who ultimately received both diagnoses.
Dannelly et al. conducted a qualitative study at a Jobs Corps Center in Atlanta and present recommendations for nutrition interventions targeting overweight African American adolescents. Guerra et al. looked into the functional health literacy of a sample of Latinas attending community health clinics in Philadelphia, finding low functional health literacy in 70% of the sample, and then finding a positive relationship between relatively low health literacy and less likelihood of undergoing mammography. Jibaja-Weiss et al. report on the effects of two different types of letters encouraging cervical cancer screening and mammography as measured by whether the addressees scheduled and kept appointments; the results are stratified according to whether the woman was African American, non-Hispanic white or Mexican American.
Adams et al. and Lin et al. both look at access to care in terms of race and/or ethnicity. The focus of the Adams paper is on disparities in prenatal care among African Americans, non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics and the effects of Medicaid expansions on these disparities. They find increased prenatal care for the racial/ethnic minority groups living in the vicinity of safety-net providers and sometimes increased care, particularly for Hispanics, in the vicinity of foreign medical school graduates (who are more likely than U.S. medical school graduates to accept Medicaid). Lin et al. focus on Medicare beneficiaries, finding that managed care plans do not reduce racial disparities in preventive care and concluding that reducing such disparities may require developing interventions specifically for different racial/ethnic groups.
Cunningham et al. report on the results of the addition of physicians to CitiWide Harm Reduction teams. (CitiWide Harm Reduction is an intervention with a population...
