Black Men Less Likely To Seek Preventive Medical Care

Black menin Jacksonville, Fla., are less likely than white men to havea primary care physician or health insurance, according to a recent report bythe Duval County Health Department, the Florida Times-Union reports. According to the report,28% of black men in the city do not have a primary care physician, comparedwith 19% of white men. Twenty percent of black men are uninsured, compared with9% of whites. The study also found that 43% of black men who visited Duval Countyemergency departments in 2005 were uninsured, compared with 36% of white men.

The findings contribute to black men being more likely than white men to die atyounger ages from manageable and treatable diseases such as diabetes, prostatecancer and heart, the Times-Union reports. Wally Smith, aprofessor of medicine and medical director of the Center on Health Disparities at Virginia Commonwealth University, said thatsuch findings have been consistent for decades, adding that having a primarycare physician is an important factor in receiving preventive care. Smith saidthat low-income men are particularly at a disadvantage for receiving preventivecare because they are less likely to qualify for Medicaid.
County officials will use the findings to develop outreach programs and effortsthat focus on preventive care, Tim Lawther, assistant director of the countyhealth department, said. The efforts — such as going to neighborhoods thathave a large number of uninsured residents with diabetes to direct them tomedical care — will begin next month. The county already has a program thatoffers prostate screenings to men who just attended church services. Lawthersaid in that initiative, officials have found that most of the black men areinsured but choose not to seek medical care. He said that black men often donot view routine medical care as a priority.
"If you don’t go to a doctor, these things that are perfectly controllablewith medical science are going to kill you," Lawther added (Galnor, FloridaTimes-Union, 6/23).

Reprintedwith permission from kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Weekly Health Disparities Report, search the archives, and sign upfor email delivery at kaisernetwork.org/email . The Kaiser Weekly HealthDisparities Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of TheHenry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2007 Advisory Board Company and KaiserFamily Foundation. All rights reserved.

Health Professionals Have Little Training in Self Harm

In a research review carried out by mental health specialists from the University of Nottingham, UK, researchers have discovered that most professionals have little training in self harm. Sadly researchers found that the lack of professional education and awareness on self-harm was the main cause of negative attitudes.
Staff nurse Jo McHale and lecturer Anne Felton studied 19 papers from the UK, Australia, Sweden and Ireland to gather the information.

Negative experiences sometimes lead to self-harm

“Research has historically shown that people who have self-harmed often have negative experiences because of the attitudes of the healthcare professionals employed to help them" says said Jo McHale."Our study showed that, on the whole little has changed. But there were a number of encouraging studies that highlighted how better education and clinical supervision can improve attitudes, especially when it is supported by government guidance."
Research found that there wasn’t any kind of support and this lack of often left nurses feeling that they were failing in their duty of care towards patients who self-harmed.
"The gap between what health professionals saw as their role and what they were expected to do in practice also influenced negative attitudes" says McHale. "For example, some felt it was wrong to remove client's property and that leaving them in nightwear to stop them self-harming contravened their rights. The people who self-harmed also had more challenging needs than medical patients on wards and were subject to different rules.”
Negative attitudes were also linked to the health professionals' perceptions of the client's ability to control their self harm. They noted that staff was more negative if they felt that the factors leading to the self-harm were within the client's control.
This attitude and judgment by medical staff affects the care of the person who self injured however, harsh judgment by undertrained medical professionals dissipated and attitudes were mainly positive when staff were giving some training and basic knowledge about self harm and training.
The research offers a clear indication that nurses and medical professionals should receive more training in self-harm so they can work with helping those who self harm.