Health Disparities In Nursing Research

Today, health disparities among minority populations is a growing phenomenon that can be prevented with extensive research. A health disparity is a disease that differs greatly in occurrence among different populations. The focus in this critique will be on health disparities among minority populations in the United States, since little nursing research has been done in this area. The more research conducted on health disparities among minorities could improve the gap that exists between minority groups and prevalence of certain diseases. The two articles I chose to critique are Gaskin et al. (2014) and Rees et al. (2014). Each study covers a topic related to different health disparities in minorities with the goal of contributing to evidenced

The purpose was to explore whether the nexus of race, poverty, and racial composition of a neighborhood are directly related to the disparity of diabetes. The research design used to collect the data was a cross-sectional survey sought to represent those aged 12 to 19 and over 60 years old. A cross-sectional design is an observational study of two groups in the same point of time. The surveys also contained a stratified sampling design that was obtained in two phases. The first phase was an interview that took place in the participants home, and data relating to their health status, health history, and risk factors were included. The second phase was a medical/physical examination that involved laboratory tests pertaining to one’s blood glucose. The National Health and Nutrition Survey was compared to 2000 US Census data to determine the consolidation of poverty and prevalent race of a neighborhood. The independent variables of interest were individual race, individual poverty status, neighborhood racial composition, and neighborhood

with the stated problem and purpose statements worked well with the study, besides the fact it could not infer causality. The problem described how little research had been done to understand the relationship between environmental and personal factors contribute to diabetes, and the purpose sought to determine the role of one’s living status and racial identity to diabetes. The research design was a cross-sectional survey with a stratified sample design. The stratified sample design was used to choose a population that fit the studies criteria, which focused solely African-American and Caucasians who lived in poor or nonpoor neighborhoods, and were identified to have diabetes. The target population were Caucasians and African-Americans in the United States who were classified to have diabetes. Representativeness of the study sample in relation to the target population was consistent to the maximum degree, since they only wanted two racial groups, however, the study would have represented minorities better if other racial groups were included. The strengths of research on diabetes in relation to individual factors included it being structured on a nationally represented sample that included measurement of diabetes from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey