spinal column with vertebrae - medical university of south...
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Inside this issue
Health Behaviors and Outcomes: A Comparison between African Americans with Spinal Cord Injury, Traumatic
Brain Injury, and in the General Population in South Carolina
Spinal Column
with Vertebrae
Cervical
Vertebrae
(7)
C1-C7
Thoracic
Vertebrae
(12)
T1-T12
Lumbar
Vertebrae
(5)
L1-L5
Sacrum
(5 - fused)
Coccyx
(4 - fused)
Ene P. Ekoja
In the United States (US), about 20% of persons with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
are African American, and about 25% of persons with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) are
African American. These numbers are large when considering only 13.1% of the US
population is African American. So far, little research has been done on preventative
behaviors, risk behaviors, and chronic diseases present after SCI or TBI, and only a
small portion of the research has focused on underserved racial-ethnic populations,
such as African Americans.
This research is important because African Americans, in general, are at a greater
risk for developing many diseases in comparison to other racial-ethnic groups. This
research can inform healthcare professionals of the needs of African Americans with
SCI or TBI in terms of preventative behaviors, risk behaviors, and chronic disease
screening and management.
Importance of the
Study
1
Meet our Student
Researchers
1
Preventative
Behaviors
2
Risk Behaviors 3
Chronic Diseases 4
Thank you! 4
Meet our Student Researchers
LONGEVITY AFTER
INJURY PROJECT
College of Health
Professions
77 President St.
MSC 700
Charleston, SC 29425
Phone: (843) 792-2605
Chelsea Whitlock Katie Voss
Ene worked with our team
in 2012 and helped to
identify the prevalence of
protective health behav-
iors (actions decreasing
the likelihood of getting
sick) among African Amer-
icans with SCI. She recent-
ly graduated from Spel-
man College with a degree
in Biology.
Chelsea also joined our
team on this study for the
summer of 2012, finding
out if African Americans
with SCI are more likely to
report risk behaviors
(actions increasing the like-
lihood) for chronic diseases.
She is currently a senior at
Spelman College, pursuing
a degree in Sociology.
Katie interned with our
team in the summer of
2013, and helped to
identify the prevalence
of chronic diseases in
African Americans after
SCI or TBI. Katie recently
graduated from Brown
University with a degree
in Community Health.
Preventative Behaviors
A person’s health depends a lot on their behaviors, actions, and life choices. People can choose to en-gage in preventative behaviors (actions decreasing one’s chance of getting sick) or risk behaviors (actions increasing one’s chance of getting sick). We will first look at the preventative behaviors.
Research has shown people with an SCI or TBI are more likely to have health complications (known as secondary health conditions), such as respiratory complications, pressure sores, and urinary tract infec-tions. Due to the increased likelihood of developing secondary health conditions, we wanted to see if African Americans with SCI and African Americans with TBI engaged in more protective behaviors than African Americans in the general population.
We studied the preventative behaviors of getting a flu shot and a pneumonia shot because vaccines can help decrease your chance of getting a potentially deadly illness. We also studied the preventative behavior of having a blood cholesterol screening because this screening helps detect your risk of heart or blood circulation problems. In the above graphs, we found :
African Americans with SCI were most likely to get vaccines out of all three groups. African Americans with TBI were more likely to get vaccines than the general African American
population. African Americans with SCI were less likely to get their blood cholesterol level checked. African Americans with TBI were the least likely to get their blood cholesterol level checked.
This shows that African Americans with SCI or TBI were more likely to participate in protective behav-iors related to secondary conditions, like getting a vaccine to prevent respiratory complications. How-ever, African Americans were less likely to engage in protective behaviors not related to secondary conditions, like getting cholesterol checked to identify their risk of heart disease.
General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population
Risk Behaviors
We will now look at risk behaviors, which are actions that may increase one’s chance of becoming sick.
Due to the increased chance of developing secondary health conditions, we wanted to see if African
Americans with SCI or TBI engaged in more risky behaviors (e.g., smoking more cigarettes or drinking
more alcohol) than African Americans in the general population.
Smoking cigarettes increases your chance of getting cancer in your lungs. Drinking too much alcohol on
many occasions can cause negative health effects in several organs in the body. Both of these risk
behaviors can lead to negative, long-term health complications and eventually death.
As seen in the graphs above, compared to the general population, both African Americans with SCI and Afri-
can Americans with TBI were more likely to engage in risk behaviors, such as smoking and consuming alco-
hol. However, those with TBI had the highest likelihood of engaging in these risk behaviors, which may put
them at risk for health complications.
*Only among those who reported smoking every day or some days
**Only among those who reported drinking alcohol in the past 30 days
African Americans with SCI were more likely to report smoking cigarettes.
African Americans with TBI were the most likely to report smoking.
Both African Americans with SCI and TBI were less likely to try to quit smoking (decreasing one’s risk behaviors).
African Americans with an SCI were more likely to report consuming alcohol in the past 30 days.
African Americans with TBI were most likely to report consuming alcohol in the past 30 days.
Both African Americans with SCI and TBI were more likely to binge drink (increasing one’s risk behav-iors).
General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population
Chronic Diseases
African Americans with SCI are about 2.5 times
more likely to report having had a stroke compared
to the general African American population.
African Americans with TBI are about 6.5 times
more likely to report having had a stroke.
African Americans with TBI are about 3 times
more likely to report having been told by a
healthcare provider that they have coronary
heart disease.
African Americans with TBI are about 2 times
more likely to report having been told by a healthcare provider that they have hypertension.
Hypertension
Coronary Heart Disease
Stroke
Thank You! Thank you so much for your participation in this important study! We had 497 participants! This study’s
success could not have been achieved without the participation of each one of you. Information from this
study will be used to inform health care professionals as well as public policymakers.
You can keep up with our study information and our day-to-day activities by visiting our sites listed below:
Website: www.longevityafterinjury.com
Blog: www.sciandtbiresearch.blogspot.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/longevityafterinjuryproject
General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population