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African Americans are among the fastest growing entrepreneurial minority group in the United States, but they continue to struggle with sustaining these new business ventures. Evidence suggests that African American business entrepreneurs experience an increased failure rate with a 4-year business survival rate of 39%. Reducing the failure rate would significantly add to the U.S. economy (an estimated $2.5 trillion) and create nearly 12 million more jobs. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies and behaviors of an award-winning African American entrepreneur in Miami Dade County who has remained in business over 20 years. The conceptual framework for this study was entrepreneurship theory. The data were collected through a semistructured interview with the participant, a review of published news media data, and a review of financial and marketing documents. Member checking was completed with the participant to strengthen credibility and trustworthiness of interpretations. The findings revealed several qualities about this entrepreneur, including innovativeness, internal locus of control, and self-efficacy attributed to business success. The participant also leveraged education and family networks as social capital to reach firm sustainability, as well as bootstrapping to mitigate the lack of financial capital. The information learned from these findings may contribute to social change by providing insight into the necessary strategies and behaviors required by African American entrepreneurs to stay in business beyond 4 years.

African Americans are adversely affected by health disparities due to the complexities of the patient-provider relationship. The behavioral model of health services was used as the theoretical framework to understand how individuals make healthcare utilization decisions. The purpose of the research was to evaluate how the patient-provider relationship influences inconsistent doctor visits by African American patients despite the prevalence of chronic conditions. 45 African Americans located in Shelby County, Tennessee were included in this study. A cross-sectional quantitative design was used to collect the data via an online survey. The 45 collected responses were analyzed by performing multiple linear regression, Pearson correlation, and Cronbach's ï?¡. Results of the analyses were statistically significant in proving that education level, income, gender of African Americans, and having health insurance affect the patient-provider relationship. It was determined by the statistically significant results that the patient-provider relationship had an effect on African American patients' decision to seek healthcare services and medication compliance and follow-up medical care. This information may guide the conversation within the Shelby County, Tennessee African American community regarding what role the patient-provider relationship has when addressing health disparities among African Americans.

The effects of nonadherence to prescribed blood pressure medication adversely impacts African Americans (AA) in comparison to their European American counterparts. The associated health consequences of uncontrolled hypertension include heart failure, stroke, and renal dysfunction. And the treatment of the complications negatively impacts quality of life and contributes to increased health care costs. To address the problem at 1 clinic, a quality improvement (QI) project was developed by the clinic nursing staff, but the project had never been evaluated. The project included blood pressure measurements assessed among AA patients before and after implementation of a 4-item Morisky Medication-Taking Adherence Scale (MMAS) and education by the nurses. The purpose of this project was to evaluate whether the use of the MMAS and education improved blood pressure control in the AA hypertensive patients. This QI evaluation project was guided by Johnson's medication adherence model and the Kolkaba comfort theory. Deidentified results of 3 months of patient blood pressures taken before and 3 months after the QI project was implemented were obtained from the site for statistical analysis. A paired sample t test was used to determine if a difference in blood pressure existed between the 2 groups, before and after implementation (n = 33) of the teaching and the MMAS. Results indicated a statistically significant (p < .05) decrease in blood pressures after implementation of the QI project. The findings of this project may positively influence social change by improving adherence to blood pressure medication and thereby improving healthcare outcomes for AA patients.

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