Racial, ethnic, and linguistic minority workers suffer higher rates of work-related injuries and illnesses in the United States compared to their White counterparts. Explanations for these higher rates include potential socioeconomic causes (education, income, and wealth) and occupational segregation into more dangerous occupations. What is less studied are the post-injury sequelae for minority workers, which is their experiences in the workers' compensation system, as well as their health and return to paid employment. What is known comes primarily from qualitative literature, which includes themes of racial discrimination (from employers, health care providers, and workers' compensation employees), a lack of information on how to navigate the workers' compensation system, and linguistically inappropriate communication with those whose first language is not the majority language. In addition, qualitative studies have found differences in the treatment of minority workers, delays in receiving partial wage payments, and worse health outcomes. Most studies examining minority workers in the workers' compensation system have not provided a theoretical framework from which to test hypotheses as to why differences exist in a social insurance system based on race, ethnicity, and language. The purpose of this dissertation was to test the role of racial discrimination in creating worse post-injury workers' compensation outcomes for minorities, compared to English speaking Whites. This dissertation utilized fundamental cause theory to frame the hypotheses and analyses in a cross-sectional investigation of differences in workers' compensation system outcomes, using both administrative data from the workers' compensation agency, as well as survey responses from a sample of 488 injured workers in Washington State. The survey, conducted by Washington State University Social and Economic Science Research Center (SESRC), provided many variables not available in the WC administrative data including measures of perceived racial discrimination to test the hypotheses that racial discrimination is a fundamental cause of worse workers' compensation outcomes for minorities. Fundamental cause theory suggests that there are basic or fundamental reasons for health disparities that are not caused by mechanisms linking the fundamental cause with a health outcome; in fact, these mechanisms can and do change, but the relationship between the primary cause and the health disparity outcome will remain. In addition, a fundamental cause affects multiple outcomes via multiple mechanisms. Access to resources such as income, wealth, prestige, knowledge, and beneficial social connections can reduce the impact of a disease once it occurs. The analytic chapters in this dissertation are organized first, to address racial discrimination in health care provider outcomes; second, to address racial discrimination in workers' compensation agency outcomes; and third, to address the role of pre-injury racial discrimination in post-injury return to work outcomes. Racial discrimination was tested in this dissertation as the fundamental cause of health-care provider disparities in timeliness of follow-up care, adequacy of care, and patient satisfaction. Racial discrimination was tested in the workers' compensation agency as the fundamental cause of administrative delays and difficulties: delays in diagnostic approval and wage replacement payments, as well as language appropriate communication, and higher counts of independent medical exams. Racial discrimination was also tested as the fundamental cause of poor return-to-work outcomes (feeling a worker returned to work too early and overall general health). Workplace support, as a possible resource (social connection), was tested as a mediator in the relationship between racial discrimination and workplace outcomes. Due to the survey nature of the study design, replicate weights were calculated based upon information available in both the surveyed and not-surveyed population to account for non-response bias, and all analyses were bootstrapped using Stata survey software. The results support the role of racial discrimination as a fundamental cause of outcomes for hypotheses in the workers' compensation agency with clear differences in delays for diagnostic services, a higher number of independent medical exams, as well as linguistically inappropriate communication for language minorities. Racial discrimination (prior to injury) was found to be significant in overall general health for minority workers, and for feeling they had returned to work too early. Workplace support (a potential social resource), was found to mitigate the role of racial discrimination in the workplace return-to-work outcomes. This study is an initial effort to examine racial discrimination as a fundamental cause of disparities in occupational health after an injury. As the majority of adults will spend one-fifth to one-third of their lives in paid employment, the ability to heal and return to full and active employment after a work-related injury is critical to ones' self-worth, as well as to the economic stability of individuals, families, and societies. If racial, ethnic, and language minorities suffer worse outcomes in their post-injury sequelae, these results will have long-lasting implications in any quest for a more equitable society.

This dissertation examines how debates about racial susceptibility to asthma changed from 1880 to 1990 alongside a growing disparity in Black and white asthma morbidity. At the turn of the century, doctors believed asthma was exclusive to whites, due to the stresses of urban life on their delicate constitution. But by 1960, the first year the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics collected asthma data, the rate of asthma mortality in Blacks was nearly twice that in whites. After neglecting asthma in Black communities for sixty years, doctors scrambled to articulate its manifestation in urban communities of color. In those decades, the urban American landscape dramatically evolved, as the Great Migration brought six million African-Americans to Northern cities, but segregation and other racist policies created black metropolises laden with dilapidated public housing, high rates of unemployment, and environmental toxins from garbage dumps, waste plants, train tracks, and bus depots. Growing racial tensions and expanded funding opportunities during the Civil Rights Movement spurred an overwhelming production of research on asthma and race, with explanations ranging from meteorological episodes, environmental pollution, and indoor allergens to biological, genetic, and even psychological factors. Although research primarily focused on psychosomatic, environmental, and genetic causes, Black activists and community leaders used asthma data to mobilize for social equality in housing, neighborhoods, health, and education. At the cross-section of the history of medicine, social history, and environmental justice history, this dissertation examines the changing debates on racial susceptibility to asthma, the effects of the Great Migration and segregation on Black health, and both tensions and alliances between doctors, patients, and activists battling asthma in Black urban communities.

Thesis (M.A.)--Humboldt State University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-56). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

The main purpose of this study was to examine nurses' attitudes toward caring for patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The study also compared the attitudes of nurses who had cared for AIDS patients with the attitudes of nurses who had not cared for AIDS patients. Educational background was also examined to see if education influences attitudes. The Ajzen-Fishbein Model of Reasoned Action was the framework used for this study.A descriptive design was used for the purpose of gaining more information regarding nurses' attitudes toward caring for patients with AIDS. A random sample of all registered nurses in the state of Indiana was used for this study. The data obtained were analyzed using frequency distributions, independent t-tests, and analysis of variance.Nurses in general are sill uncomfortable with caring for AIDS patients. Between 40% and 50% of nurses are fearful of contracting the AIDS virus and fearful of putting their family at risk. On the other hand, approximately the same percentage are comfortable caring for AIDS patients. Furthermore, nurses believe that health care agencies should care for AIDS patients, but believe that nurses should have the right to refuse to care for AIDS patients.Results of this study indicated that educational background does not influence nurses' attitudes toward caring for patients with AIDS. However, as nurses have more experience caring for patients with AIDS, they appear to develop more positive attitudes. / School of Nursing

Bibliography : leaves 375-403. / vi, 403 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Examines the response to a number of outsiders and marginal social groups, such as Jews, Chinese, and Southern and Eastern Europeans predominantly in England and Australia, and considers the role that public health played in arguments for their exclusion and control. Measures the strength of the public health case, arguing that a health threat was generally not a real issue but, more typically, a badge which labelled the outsider as dangerous to the community. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Community Medicine, 1993

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Public Health, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2008. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-04, page: 2100. Adviser: Florence J. Dallo. Includes bibliographical references.

Master of Public Health / This study aimed to contribute to the current debate around equity in health care resource allocation by measuring the current allocation of resources, relative to need in the Northern Cape. It also discussed the level of inequities in health financing expenditure and staffing at the primary health care level between different districts of the Northern Cape. / South Africa

The primary focus of the current study was to identify health disparities between sexual minority subgroups by examining differences of health indicators in lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals, and compare these to their heterosexual counterparts. Data was drawn from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and variables examined in sexual minorities were related to health care access and utilization, risky health behaviors, and overall disease prevalence and outcomes. Findings suggest there are still some current health disparities in terms of insurance coverage, access to medical care, substance use, and prevalence of certain health conditions. However, a trend analysis conducted to examine three NHANES panels, suggests a mild improvement in some of these areas. Further findings, discussion, limitations of the study, current implications, and future directions are addressed.

This thesis presents a challenge to policy initiatives that presume that patient-centered care will reduce racial disparities in health. Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey were used to test patient assessment of provider behavior defined as patient-centered care according to the National Health Disparities Report of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Department of Health and Human Services. Results indicated patient-centered care improves self-rated health status, but blacks still report worse health status than whites experiencing comparable patient-centered care. Further, black-white differences in patient-centered care had no affect on health status. Rival theories of black-white differences in health, including social class and health literacy, provided better explanations of disparities than assessment of provider behaviors. These findings suggest that policies designed to financially incentivize patient-centered care practices by providers should be considered with caution. While patient-centered care is better quality care, financial incentives could have a negative effect on minority health if providers are deterred from practices that serve disproportionate numbers of poor and less literate patients and their families. Measurement of the concept of patient-centered care in future health disparities research was also discussed.