This title is an easy-to-read guide outlining specific differences in communication, clinical therapies, medications, protocols, and other critical approaches to the care of African Americans. The book discusses a wide range of disorders impacting African Americans and takes a comprehensive and evidence-based approach to the clinical support of providers that see African American patients. Recording the worst medical outcomes of any racial/ethnic group in America, African Americans have the highest mortality, longest hospital length of stay, worst compliance with medications and referrals, and the lowest trust of the healthcare system. Indeed, there are countless well-designed studies that validate verified differences in the clinical care of a number of pervasive diseases in African Americans, including hypertension, heart disease, kidney disease, obesity, cancer, and more. Despite the widespread acknowledgement of the existence of health disparities among racial/ethnic groups, the overall outcomes for African Americans are still the most shocking. From high infant mortality to death by almost any cause, African Americans have the worst data of any other racial or ethnic group. Patient-Centered Clinical Care for African Americans, a highly practical and first-of-its-kind title, illuminates these alarming issues and represents a major contribution to the clinical literature. It will be of significant interest to all physicians, clinicians, and allied health personnel.

Exploring Health Psychology provides comprehensive yet student-friendly coverage of both traditional topics in the field and important contemporary issues relating to reproductive, sexual, and psychological health. Using an informal, sometimes humorous narrative, the authors engage students of all interest levels, abilities, and learning styles by emphasizing the application of health and wellbeing psychology in their daily lives. Balancing depth and accessibly, each chapter describes the body systems relevant to a particular topic, incorporates up-to-date information and research, and contains relatable examples, real-world applications, compelling discussion and review questions, personal stories and vignettes, a running glossary, and more. Broad in scope, Exploring Health Psychology examines the interactions between biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors in psychological disorders and discusses their psychological and medical treatment. Critical psychological health issues such as anxiety and depression, the health of sexual and gender minorities, and the psychological dangers and pitfalls of the digital age are addressed to meet the needs of today’s students. An array of active learning features based on the SQ4R pedagogy—Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Reflect, and Review—enables students to take an active role in the learning process, develop effective study habits, strengthen critical and scientific thinking, and comprehend, retain, and apply the material.

Depression: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Depression. The editors have built Depression: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Depression in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Depression: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This volume discusses the many ways to prevent, identify and control hypertension in African Americans, a common and potent risk factor for virtually all forms of cardiovascular-renal diseases. Comprehensive chapters address modifiable risk factors, such as lifestyle changes, especially sodium restriction, and appropriate combination pharmacotherapy. Emerging devices and evidence-based approaches that may also enhance effective blood pressure control and decrease the disparate cardiovascular disease risks, including MI, stroke, HF, and cardiorenal metabolic syndrome and diabetes are also discussed in detail. Written by a wide-range of experts in the field, Hypertension in High Risk African Americans: Current Concepts, Evidence-based Therapeutics and Future Considerations is a valuable resource for clinicians, researchers, health administrators and public health policy leaders to better understand the best practices and unique aspects of risk assessment and treatment of hypertension and co-morbid conditions in African Americans.

As a contribution to the emerging healthcare quality movement, Patient Advocacy for Healthcare Quality: Strategies for Achieving Patient-Centered Care is distinct from any others of its kind in its focus on the consumer’s perspective and in its emphasis on how advocacy can influence change at multiple social levels. This introductory volume synthesizes patient advocacy from a multi-level approach and is an ideal text for graduate and professional students in schools of public health, nursing and social work.

This book addresses the unique sociocultural and historical systems of oppression that have alienated African-American and other racial minority patients within the mental healthcare system. This text aims to build a novel didactic curriculum addressing racism, justice, and community mental health as these issues intersect clinical practice. Unlike any other resource, this guide moves beyond an exploration of the problem of racism and its detrimental effects, to a practical, solution-oriented discussion of how to understand and approach the mental health consequences with a lens and sensitivity for contemporary justice issues. After establishing the historical context of racism within organized medicine and psychiatry, the text boldly examines contemporary issues, including clinical biases in diagnosis and treatment, addiction and incarceration, and perspectives on providing psychotherapy to racial minorities. The text concludes with chapters covering training and medical education within this sphere, approaches to supporting patients coping with racism and discrimination, and strategies for changing institutional practices in mental healthcare. Written by thought leaders in the field, Racism and Psychiatry is the only current tool for psychiatrists, psychologists, administrators, educators, medical students, social workers, and all clinicians working to treat patients dealing with issues of racism at the point of mental healthcare.

Mental Health: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Mental Health. The editors have built Mental Health: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Mental Health in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Mental Health: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

This edited volume brings together top-notch scientists and practitioners to illustrate intersections between health communication, behavior change, and treatment adherence.

This groundbreaking book applies the concept of social determinants of health to the health of African- American men. While there have been significant efforts in recent years to eliminate health disparities, serious disparities continue to exist especially with regard to African–American men who continue to suffer disproportionately from poor health when compared to other racial, ethnic, and gender groups in the United States. This book covers the most important issues relating to social determinants of health and also offers viable strategies for reducing health disparities.

Since the publication of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust in 2011, there has been an increasing emphasis on assuring that clinical practice guidelines are trustworthy, developed in a transparent fashion, and based on a systematic review of the available research evidence. To align with the IOM recommendations and to meet the new requirements for inclusion of a guideline in the National Guidelines Clearinghouse of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), American Psychiatric Association (APA) has adopted a new process for practice guideline development. Under this new process APA's practice guidelines also seek to provide better clinical utility and usability. Rather than a broad overview of treatment for a disorder, new practice guidelines focus on a set of discrete clinical questions of relevance to an overarching subject area. A systematic review of evidence is conducted to address these clinical questions and involves a detailed assessment of individual studies. The quality of the overall body of evidence is also rated and is summarized in the practice guideline. With the new process, recommendations are determined by weighing potential benefits and harms of an intervention in a specific clinical context. Clear, concise, and actionable recommendation statements help clinicians to incorporate recommendations into clinical practice, with the goal of improving quality of care. The new practice guideline format is also designed to be more user friendly by dividing information into modules on specific clinical questions. Each module has a consistent organization, which will assist users in finding clinically useful and relevant information quickly and easily. This new edition of the practice guidelines on psychiatric evaluation for adults is the first set of the APA's guidelines developed under the new guideline development process. These guidelines address the following nine topics, in the context of an initial psychiatric evaluation: review of psychiatric symptoms, trauma history, and treatment history; substance use assessment; assessment of suicide risk; assessment for risk of aggressive behaviors; assessment of cultural factors; assessment of medical health; quantitative assessment; involvement of the patient in treatment decision making; and documentation of the psychiatric evaluation. Each guideline recommends or suggests topics to include during an initial psychiatric evaluation. Findings from an expert opinion survey have also been taken into consideration in making recommendations or suggestions. In addition to reviewing the available evidence on psychiatry evaluation, each guideline also provides guidance to clinicians on implementing these recommendations to enhance patient care.