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Preventive Measures, Diabetes and the African American Community

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Preventive Measures, Diabetes and the African American Community
Introduction
One of the pressing issues in medicine is that people do not go their primary care physicians proactively. As a result we have seen a continuous rise in health problems and a continuous decline in good health. Statistics confirm that the lack of resources available to people are a major contributing factor in this epidemic. This issue can not be ignored. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had to take notice. They completed several studies to help determine where some of the problems are and how they can be rectified or modified at least. The conclusion was that preventive practices were overall the determining factor in circumventing a lot of health concerns becoming problematic and in some cases fatal.
Another area of concern for this modern way of concern from the physician 's perspective was making sure that they are able to serve and meet their patients ' needs. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ, 1996) at one point there was a "growing scope of and complexity of medical information, physicians are finding it increasingly difficult to stay abreast of current medical knowledge. This growth in physician-targeted medical information is evident in the proliferation of subspecialty journals, the growing presence of clinical-economic studies, and the escalating marketing efforts of a range of actors. Policymakers and managed care providers have entered the fray, vying to affect physician practice with an expanding array of clinical guidelines, profiling, and utilization review.The rapidly increasing availability of information has coincided with fundamental change in the structure and delivery of care…Access to medical information and dissemination of findings is central to the management of costs and clinical outcomes." Even physicians had to take notice in the way they handled their practices. Practicing preventive medicine is at minimum dually beneficial: it heightens the patient 's



Cited: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, (1996) Information To Guide Physician Practice: Overvie. Retrieved on October 13, 2007 from http://www.ahrq.gov/research/physprac.htm. Rockville, MD Bailey, Eric J. (2002). African American Alternative Medicine: Using Alternative Medicine to Prevent and Control Chronic Disease. 113,115. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Braithwaite, Ronald L. & Taylor, Sandra E. (2001) Health Issues in the Black Community. 232. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey Bass Honeycutt, Amanda A. & Clayton, Laurel & Khavjou, Olga, & Finkelstein, Eric A. & Prabhu, Malavika, & Blitstein, Jonathan L., & Evans, Douglas W., & Renaud, Jeanette M., (2006, March). Guide to Analyzing the Cost-Effectiveness of Community Public Health Prevention Approaches. 2-7, 2-8. [Electronic Version] Retrieved on October 10, 2007 http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/_/topic/topic.cfm?topic=Public%20Health National Diabetes Education Program. (2005) The Diabetes Epidemic Among African Americans. Adapted from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Retrieved in October 10, 2007 http://www.ndep.nih.gov/diabetes/pubs/FS_AfricanAm.pdf National Diabetes Education Program. (2004). Millions of African Americans at Increased Risk for Type 2 Diabetes. Adapted from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Retrieved on October 10, 2007 http://www.ndep.nih.gov/diabetes/pubs/50_Ways_Press_Release.pdf Reinberg, Steven. (2007, September 27). Older Blacks, Latinos with Diabetes Control. The Washington Post. Retrieved on October 13, 2007 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092701183.html. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2004, April). Prevention: A Blueprint for Action. 7, 26 [Electronic Version] Retrieved on October 10, 2007 from http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/_/topic/topic.cfm?topic=Public%20Health U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2004, December). Diabetes: A National Plan for Action. 14. [Electronic Version] Retrieved on October 10, 2007 from http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/_/topic/topic.cfm?topic=Public%20Health

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