Establishing a community network for recruitment of African Americans into a clinical trial. The African-American antiplatelet stroke Prevention Study (AAASPS) experience.

A major aspect of a clinical trial is the ability to successfully recruit patients. There is a paucity of information concerning the nuances of recruiting study patients, especially those from minority communities. As minorities generally have been underrepresented in the health-care system, they may be less likely to participate in clinical trials or other studies. Thus, a strategy is needed to overcome this potential shortfall. One of our solutions has been the development of a community network to help disseminate information about our program. We believe that a key aspect has been the involvement of community members during pre-trial planning, community awareness programs, and our Community Advisory Panel. We also believe that it may be a major error to bring a health-care initiative unannounced into a targeted community without extensive pre-program planning in cooperation with that community. As our community awareness scheme suggests (Figure), there are many possible avenues to heighten awareness about a health-care program. While the church remains an important institution for religious and cultural activities in the African-American community, we have found that the news, television, and radio media also can be a powerful source for spreading awareness. Thus, we recommend creating awareness about an initiative through a "grassroots" approach of church and community organizations, along with a global approach through news, television, and radio media. As part of the awareness promotion campaign, it must be emphasized that the study is safe and provides benefits to enrollees. The success of health programs is largely dependent on community acceptance, which must be established in the pre-program planning stages of the initiative. This concept of obtaining community approval and acceptance prior to program initiation is not a new one, nor does it exclusively apply to the African-American community. Community leaders and members need to have a vested interest in such a program and a sense of empowerment. Through this type of communication, patient enrollment and community satisfaction can be substantial. Such success can serve as a springboard for other targeted health-care studies or programs in high-risk communities.     

Hispanic preferences for health care providers and health care information

In a 1994 telephone survey, only 13% of 522 adult Hispanic respondents in the Southwest used media as the main source of information for physicians, while 19% used media for information regarding health services. Family and friends were main sources. About 75% of the respondents had a family physician with the mother (68%) making health care decisions for the family. A large majority of respondents said that neither the physician's sex, nor race were factors in choosing physicians.     

Performance characteristics of a gamma camera over a wide range of energies

The problem of choosing which collimator to use for imaging a new isotope has been approached by collecting resolution and sensitivity data for a selected group of isotopes. These have been chosen to be readily available and to have generally a single -ray only. Resolution and sensitivity plots for a low energy collimator and a high energy collimator are presented and their use with several isotopes of interest is discussed. The interpretation of recommendations in the literature on the choice of collimators for newly introduced isotopes would be considerably simpler if data in this format were commonly available.     

Abortion as “deviance”

Summary The paper focuses on the relationship between changing societal norms toward women's roles and actual, emotional acceptance of them for oneself, specifically as the norms relate to abortion and sexual behavior. Elective abortion still is regarded by many as a deviant activity. Such a view has sprung from an uncritical acceptance of the traditional role of women. The implications are that women who have abortions accept traditional norms for sexual behavior, in spite of their own sexual activity, and have a generally traditional view of women's roles. They are considered to behave stereotypically and to have failed. Traditional norms for women's roles have been challenged in recent years, however, especially by the feminist movement. The authors hypothesized that women who sought early abortions would tend to have feminist orientations. The paper is based on a study of 1598 women with problem pregnancies, part of a larger study conducted throughout Michigan during 1974–75. The women studied showed little lag in emotional acceptance of changing norms about women's roles. They indicated a non-traditional female role orientation, and seemed to see themselves as competent, selfdirected, and legitimately sexual persons. Most did not have any great conflict over the decision to have an abortion. The findings by and large substantiated the authors' hypotheses.This research is supported by Grant Number 1 RO 1 HD0773901, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Washington, D. C.     

A minimal apparatus method for counting bacteria: comparison with reference method in surveying beef carcasses at three commercial abattoirs

In two surveys of three commercial abattoirs a minimal apparatus method for making bacterial counts, the "loop-tile' method, detected the same trends in bacterial numbers on beef carcasses as the ISO reference method applied to the same samples. Both methods showed the carcasses from one abattoir, that with an export license, to carry consistently higher numbers of bacteria, and one of the four sites sampled on each carcass to be consistently dirtier than the other three.