Delaware journal of public health最新文献

Objective: To describe the Delaware Cancer Registry (DCR)'s participation in the National Cancer Institute (NCI)/North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) Zone Design Project to create sub-county geographic areas ("zones") for use in cancer reporting and geospatial analysis.

Methods: DCR and other stakeholders reviewed up to ten unique zone configurations for each of Delaware's three counties. The zone configurations were created using AZTool and were set to optimize three objectives: create zones that have a minimum and target population of 50,000; are homogenous based on the variables of percent minority, percent below poverty, and percent urban; and are as compact as possible. The DCR sent a survey to stakeholders to provide input on their preferred zone configuration for each county. Following the final selection of zones, the DCR utilized the geographies for calculating overall and late-stage breast cancer incidence statistics and created choropleth maps to visualize the rates by quintiles.

Results: The final selections resulted in a total of 15 zones for Delaware, with three in Kent County, nine in New Castle County, and three in Sussex County. The zones ranged in population size from 54,013 to 67,693 people. Zones with higher late-stage breast cancer incidence rates included those near the areas of Wilmington, Middletown, and between Milford and Georgetown. Comparing results of overall breast cancer incidence rates by zone with late-stage rates by zone, there were areas that had lower relative overall breast cancer incidence rates but were relatively higher for late-stage rates by zones or vice versa.

Conclusions: Aggregating census tracts into zones allows for reporting reliable cancer rates at sub-county levels, which is instrumental in conveying meaningful information about regional cancer trends to stakeholders and the public. Delaware will be able to utilize zone-level cancer information to provide targeted interventions and outreach initiatives.

Introduction: American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) quality measures are used to monitor and evaluate metrics among their CoC-accredited programs, which include seven of Delaware's hospitals. The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Public Health (DPH) also utilizes these metrics to monitor and evaluate Delaware's overall performance on these standards of care as it relates to the health care provided to cancer patients.

Methods: Delaware Cancer Registry (DCR) cases diagnosed in 2018 and 2019 were selected and were analyzed separately to calculate results for each selected measure by year: HT, nBX, LNoSurg, and RECRTCT.

Results: Results of the analysis showed that three out of the four CoC quality measures evaluated met the CoC standard of care for both 2018 and 2019 data. The three measures that met the CoC standards for 2018 were HT (90.4%), nBX (87.6%), and LNoSurg (93.3%). The RECRTCT measure did not meet the CoC standard for 2018 data with 71.4%. All four measures evaluated met the CoC standards for 2019 (HT - 91.6%; nBX - 85.2%; LNoSurg - 92.7%; RECRTCT - 92.3%).

Discussion: A majority of cases assessed met the CoC quality measure standards, meeting standards of cancer care and treatment. More discovery work needs to be done to assess the RECRTCT metric to explore reasons why cases did not meet the CoC quality measure standards. There was notable improvement seen for the HT measure over time, where cases had not met the CoC standard in previous years.

Public health implications: When CoC quality measures are met, medical providers can ensure patients receive effective and targeted cancer care. This practice ultimately saves resources, reduces cancer burden, impacts survival, and improves public health outcomes.

A previously initiated statewide effort in Delaware improved outcomes in colorectal cancer (CRC) racial disparities. Objective. To examine whether improvements in racial disparities for CRC have been sustained a decade later and the status of Delaware's current cancer burden. Methods. Cancer incidence data from the Delaware Cancer Registry, mortality data from the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC)'s National Center for Health Statistics, and cancer screening data from CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System were analyzed. Five-year age-adjusted incidence and mortality rates were calculated, and comparisons were made between non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White groups using rate ratios. Distributions by cancer stage were compared between time periods by race/ethnicity utilizing chi-square statistical tests. The prevalence of Delawareans meeting recommendations for CRC screening was compared between time points for each race/ethnicity group using the Rao-Scott Modified chi-square test. Results. Comparing 2006-2010 and 2015-2019, CRC incidence rates decreased for non-Hispanic Black Delawareans from 51.0 to 39.6 per 100,000 population and decreased for non-Hispanic White Delawareans from 46.6 to 37.6 per 100,000 population. Between 2006-2010 and 2015-2019, CRC mortality rates decreased for non-Hispanic Black Delawareans from 16.8 to 15.1 per 100,000 population and decreased for non-Hispanic White Delawareans from 16.8 to 13.3 per 100,000 population. There were no significant differences in CRC incidence or mortality rates by race/ethnicity in either period. The distribution of cases by stage comparing 2006-2010 and 2015-2019 were not significantly different for either race/ethnicity group. There were no significant differences in meeting CRC screening recommendations comparing 2010 and 2018 by race/ethnicity or directly comparing race/ethnicity groups in either year. Conclusions. Delaware has sustained improvements in CRC incidence, mortality rates, and disparities between non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White groups but will continue to monitor CRC trends and outcomes to ensure early diagnosis and that disparities are eliminated.

Little is known about the association between psychedelic use and substance abuse in the general population. We present a case of an award winning musician with an extensive history of hallucinogen use during his early life and how this impacted his overall wellbeing and opioid experience.

For over two decades, violence has been understood as a public health problem. Despite a well-established and applicable public health framework, progress to address the entrenched violence that plagues many cities has been slow. We believe that progress can be effective only if it fully includes those most impacted by the violence. In this article, we describe an initiative to address one aspect of violence plaguing Wilmington: access to and possession of guns. Our initiative is driven by the lived experience of community members, builds on and expands an established collective impact effort to address gun violence, and focuses on the root causes of gun violence.

In this article, we explore the responses of 357 African American men between 15- and 24-years old living in four high crime high violence cities to better understand their perception of their environment and its impact on community violence. We focus on study participants' perceptions of their cities, explanations of violence, and their perceived contribution to the level of violence. Respondents describe their cities in grim terms with few opportunities. And, from their perspective, the dangerous environment in which they live necessitates gun possession, potentially perpetuating community violence. Our findings affirm that as with any other public health issue, the perception of place matters in understanding community violence. Further, our findings underscore the importance of seeking and responding to the lived experience of those most likely to be victims and perpetrators of community violence in crafting and implementing interventions.

Hospital Violence Intervention Programs (HVIP) are increasingly implemented across a variety of healthcare-associated contexts to prevent and address violent intentional injury. We describe the establishment of a health system funded HVIP in Delaware and the direct experiences of staff and violence-specialized Community Health Workers.