The Black Women's Health Study (BWHS) is a long-term observational study conducted at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center since 1995 to investigate the health problems of black women over a long time period, with the ultimate goal of improving their health. Gaining information about the causes of health problems that affect black women will help to determine health outcomes. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, follows a cohort of the 59,000 women that enrolled. [1]
Black women are underrepresented in most studies of women's health, while some disorders are known to disproportionately affect black women. Women's health is often meant to reflect women's reproductive health, but in this case, it is better expressed as "the health of Black women". This study seeks to gather and compile information on the conditions that affect Black women including particularly breast cancer, lupus, premature birth, hypertension, colon cancer, diabetes, and uterine fibroids. [2] [3]
The study design is based on a biennial questionnaire. Publications have been released continually since the start of the survey, mostly dealing with specific conditions. [4] The earliest were abstracts. [5] The first comprehensive report was in 1998. [6] Through May 2014, there have been a total of 205 papers. [7] A biannual newsletter summarizing current work is also published. [8]
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are associated with specific signs and symptoms. A disease may be caused by external factors such as pathogens or by internal dysfunctions. For example, internal dysfunctions of the immune system can produce a variety of different diseases, including various forms of immunodeficiency, hypersensitivity, allergies, and autoimmune disorders.
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients." The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of the patient, and the best available scientific information to guide decision-making about clinical management. The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients.
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution, patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) was a series of clinical studies initiated by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1991, to address major health issues causing morbidity and mortality in postmenopausal women. It consisted of three clinical trials (CT) and an observational study (OS). In particular, randomized controlled trials were designed and funded that addressed cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.
In causal inference, a confounder is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Confounding is a causal concept, and as such, cannot be described in terms of correlations or associations. The existence of confounders is an important quantitative explanation why correlation does not imply causation. Some notations are explicitly designed to identify the existence, possible existence, or non-existence of confounders in causal relationships between elements of a system.
Alcohol has a number of effects on health. Short-term effects of alcohol consumption include intoxication and dehydration. Long-term effects of alcohol include changes in the metabolism of the liver and brain, several types of cancer and alcohol use disorder. Alcohol intoxication affects the brain, causing slurred speech, clumsiness, and delayed reflexes. There is an increased risk of developing an alcohol use disorder for teenagers while their brain is still developing. Adolescents who drink have a higher probability of injury including death.
Ralph S. Paffenbarger, Jr. was an epidemiologist, ultramarathoner, and professor at both Stanford University School of Medicine and Harvard University School of Public Health.
Tobacco products, especially when smoked or used orally, have negative effects on human health. Researchers have addressed concerns about these effects for a long time. They have focused primarily on cigarette smoking.
A chronic condition is a health condition or disease that is persistent or otherwise long-lasting in its effects or a disease that comes with time. The term chronic is often applied when the course of the disease lasts for more than three months. Common chronic diseases include diabetes, functional gastrointestinal disorder, eczema, arthritis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, autoimmune diseases, genetic disorders and some viral diseases such as hepatitis C and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. An illness which is lifelong because it ends in death is a terminal illness. It is possible and not unexpected for an illness to change in definition from terminal to chronic. Diabetes and HIV for example were once terminal yet are now considered chronic due to the availability of insulin for diabetics and daily drug treatment for individuals with HIV which allow these individuals to live while managing symptoms.
Dame Valerie Beral AC DBE FRS FRCOG FMedSci was an Australian-born British epidemiologist, academic and a preeminent specialist in breast cancer epidemiology. She was Professor of Epidemiology, a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and was the Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and Cancer Research UK from 1989.
Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a dietary assessment tool delivered as a questionnaire to estimate frequency and, in some cases, portion size information about food and beverage consumption over a specified period of time, typically the past month, three months, or year. FFQs are a common dietary assessment tool used in large epidemiologic studies of nutrition and health. Examples of usage include assessment of intake of vitamins and other nutrients, assessment of the intake of toxins, and estimating the prevalence of dietary patterns such as vegetarianism.
David A. Savitz is a professor of Community Health in the Epidemiology Section of the Program in Public Health, Vice President for Research, and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at The Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Associate Director for Perinatal Research in The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Women & Infants Hospital, both in Providence, Rhode Island. Savitz is the author of Interpreting epidemiologic evidence: strategies for study design and analysis (ISBN 0-19-510840-X) and more than 275 peer-reviewed articles. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2007.
The Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), located in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of six human nutrition research centers in the United States supported by the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service. The goal of the HNRCA, which is managed by Tufts University, is to explore the relationship between nutrition, physical activity, and healthy and active aging.
Jane A. Cauley is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and an Associate Dean for Research at the University of Pittsburgh.
Steven Coughlin is an American epidemiologist and author who received international attention for his Congressional testimony in support of U.S. veterans. At the time of this entry, he is a tenured Professor of Epidemiology at Augusta University in Augusta, GA. Coughlin has published over 366 scientific articles and was the lead author of the first and second editions of Case Studies in Public Health Ethics, and lead editor of the first, second, and third editions of Ethics and Epidemiology. In addition, Coughlin was the author of The Principle of Equal Abundance, The Nature of Principles, and the first and second editions of Ethics in Epidemiology and Public Health Practice: Collected Works. Most recently, Coughlin was co-editor of Handbook of Community-based Participatory Research and Black Health in the South.
Gladys Block is a nutrition researcher who worked at the National Cancer Institute.
Lauren Anne Wise is a Canadian-American epidemiologist and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.
Gypsyamber D'Souza is an American epidemiologist. She is a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. D'Souza researches infectious diseases, cancer prevention, and translational epidemiology. She is a principal investigator of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study / Women's Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study (Mwccs.org).
Lucile L. Adams-Campbell is the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States. She serves as the Professor of Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and associate director for Minority Health at the Georgetown University Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, and the Washington DC Hall of Fame.
Patricia Coogan is Senior Epidemiologist at the Slone Epidemiology Center and a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) Research Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. She is a co-investigator for the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS), a prospective study at the Slone Epidemiology Center.