African Americans are two to four times more likely to develop dementia as Non-Hispanic Whites. This increased risk among African Americans represents a critical health disparity that affects nearly 43 million Americans. The present study tested the hypothesis that older African Americans with elevated beta-amyloid would show greater neurodegeneration (smaller hippocampal volumes and decreased ...

African Americans are disproportionately at risk for renal disease, especially those with type 2 diabetes (McDonough et al., 2011). Despite this disease disparity, the literature lacks research on renal disease awareness and risk perceptions among African Americans with type 2 diabetes. Therefore, a literature review guided by the Common Sense Model was conducted to review and synthesize the li...

PURPOSE The purpose of this research was to study some of the reasons why African Americans are underrepresented in dental hygiene. The purpose was to 1) describe African American representation in dental hygiene and dental hygiene education; 2) evaluate the relationship between the percentage of hygienists and the percentage of African Americans by state; and 3) evaluate how the professional p...

We examined the effect of stereotype threat on blood pressure reactivity. Compared with European Americans, and African Americans under little or no stereotype threat, African Americans under stereotype threat exhibited larger increases in mean arterial blood pressure during an academic test, and performed more poorly on difficult test items. We discuss the significance of these findings for un...

BACKGROUND Although studies have shown that African American haemodialysis patients report better overall quality of life than Whites, racial differences in depression and symptom burden remain less well characterized. The aim of this study was to compare these domains between African American and White patients on chronic haemodialysis. METHODS We surveyed African American and White maintena...

Smoking is associated with poorer health outcomes for both African and European Americans. In order to better understand whether ethnic-specific genetic variation may underlie some of these differences, we compared the smoking-associated genome-wide methylation signatures of African Americans with those of European Americans, and followed up this analysis with a focused examination of the most ...

The aim of this study was to assess the differences in correlation of PPARGC1A polymorphisms with type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk in adults of African origins: African Americans and Haitian Americans. The case-control study consisted of >30 years old, self-identified Haitian Americans (n = 110 cases and n = 116 controls) and African Americans (n = 124 cases and n = 122 controls) living in South Flor...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Levels of asymmetric dimethylarginine, an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, are elevated in kidney disease and associated with mortality in white European hemodialysis populations. Nitric oxide production and degradation are partially genetically determined and differ by racial background. No studies have measured asymmetric dimethylarginine in African Americans on d...

We conducted a 5-year study analyzing antibody and B cell responses to the influenza A virus components of the inactivated influenza vaccine, trivalent (IIV3) or quadrivalent (IIV4) in younger (aged 35-45) and aged (≥65 years of age) Caucasian and African American individuals. Antibody titers to the two influenza A virus strains, distribution of circulating B cell subsets and the blood transcri...