PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Power imbalance in health care reveals impact of race and role on team dynamics and DEI efforts

2024-05-28
(Press-News.org) Background and Goal: Team-based care is considered the gold standard in delivery models. It uses integrated clinical teams with diverse skills and perspectives to provide efficient, high-quality health care services. Within these teams, individuals from minoritized racial-ethnic groups, often referred to as persons of color (POC), typically occupy roles with less authority (e.g., medical assistants), while white individuals more frequently hold positions of greater power (e.g., physicians). Few studies have explored the viewpoints of staff members in lower-power roles, who are disproportionately POC and constitute the majority of a health care team. This study aims to understand the perspectives of clinic staff members across racial and role groups to inform future interventions that could improve health care teams and address race-related issues more effectively.

Study Approach: From May to July 2021, researchers conducted semi-structured, 45-minute interviews with 60 staff members at community health clinics within a large urban health care system. The team intentionally recruited participants to ensure representation of POC and support staff, including medical assistants, front desk clerks, care navigators, nurses, and others. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed over six months using a critical ideological framework. This theoretical approach focuses on understanding and challenging power structures, ideologies, and social inequalities within society.

Main Results: Among the 60 participants, most identified as female (83%), POC (68%), and support staff (70%). Five overarching themes emerged:

POC face hidden challenges Racial discrimination persists Power dynamics perpetuate inaction Interpersonal actions (such as relationship building, active recognition of staff member contributions, and tangible anti-racist steps) foster safety and equity System-level change is needed for cultural shifts POC team members deal with hidden challenges related to managing an emotional burden that white team members may not perceive. Those with the least power in the clinic, namely support staff who are POC, bear the brunt of this burden and yet have the least power to effect change, resulting in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) inaction. Relationship building acts as a buffer to race-related experiences and is, to some extent, reparative and protective for POC team members.

Why It Matters: Without a sense of belonging and value, diversity and equity efforts fail to last in the workplace. Interpersonal actions and system-level changes are essential for a cultural shift, undertaken by those currently in positions of power. The findings show that investing time in developing team relationships, actively recognizing staff contributions, and taking tangible antiracist actions by leadership foster safety and equity. The researchers recommend that leadership take on the responsibility of identifying and offering repeated, experiential, and interactive training. These should serve as alternatives to ineffective one-time DEI training.

Power Dynamics Perpetuate DEI Inaction: A Qualitative Study of Community Health Clinic Teams

Laura Marie Ramzy, PhD, et al 

Integrated Behavioral Health, Ambulatory Care Services, Denver Health and Hospital Authority,

Denver, Colorado

Department of Family Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado

PRE-EMBARGO LINK (Link expires at 5 p.m. EDT May 28th, 2024)

PERMANENT LINK

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

NRG Oncology appoints new vice-chairs for their patient advocate committee

2024-05-28
NRG Oncology (NRG), a National Cancer Institute (NCI) National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) group focused on improving outcomes for adults with cancer through multi-center clinical research, recently announced two new Vice-Chairs to co-lead the NRG Patient Advocate Committee (PAC) alongside the current PAC Committee Chair, Dorothy Erlanger. Marlyn Molero, was appointed as Vice-Chair of the NRG PAC. Marlyn is a clinical researcher in the oncology area with Commonspirit Research Institute as well as a Spanish interpreter at Vituity. Marlyn brings a unique perspective to the NRG PAC leadership ...

Why do Dyeing poison frogs tap dance?

Why do Dyeing poison frogs tap dance?
2024-05-28
The toe tapping behavior of various amphibians has long attracted attention from researchers and pet owners. Despite being widely documented, the underlying functional role is poorly understood. In a new paper, researchers demonstrate that Dyeing poison frogs modulate their taps based on specific stimuli.  Dyeing poison frogs, Dendrobates tinctorius, have been shown to tap their posterior toes in response to a range of prey sizes, from small fruit flies to large crickets. In the present study, ...

UC Irvine study reveals circadian clock can be leveraged to enhance cancer immunotherapy

2024-05-28
Irvine, Calif., May 28, 2024 — A multidisciplinary research team at the University of California, Irvine has revealed that the circadian clock – the biological pacemaker that governs daily rhythms in physiological processes, including immune functions – can be leveraged to enhance the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy. Checkpoint inhibitors block different proteins from binding to tumor cells, allowing the immune system’s T cells to kill the tumor.   The study, published online ...

Cell-targeting technology allows researchers to isolate neuronal subpopulations and link them to behavioral states

Cell-targeting technology allows researchers to isolate neuronal subpopulations and link them to behavioral states
2024-05-28
(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 27, 2024) As gene sequencing technologies become more powerful, our understanding of cellular diversity has grown in parallel. This led scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to create a tool to improve the ease and accuracy with which investigators can study specific subpopulations of cells. The tool, named Conditional Viral Expression by Ribozyme Guided Degradation (ConVERGD), allows researchers to specifically access these subgroups of cells and precisely manipulate ...

When should you neuter or spay your dog?

2024-05-28
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have updated their guidelines on when to neuter 40 popular dog varieties by breed and sex. Their recent paper in Frontiers in Veterinary Science adds five breeds to a line of research that began in 2013 with a study that suggested that early neutering of golden retrievers puts them at increased risk of joint diseases and certain cancers. That initial study set off a flurry of debate about the best age to neuter other popular breeds. Professors Lynette and Benjamin Hart of the School of Veterinary Medicine, the study’s lead authors, set out to add more breed studies by examining more than a decade ...

Is it a sound of music…or of speech? Scientists uncover how our brains try to tell the difference

2024-05-28
Music and speech are among the most frequent types of sounds we hear. But how do we identify what we think are differences between the two?  An international team of researchers mapped out this process through a series of experiments—yielding insights that offer a potential means to optimize therapeutic programs that use music to regain the ability to speak in addressing aphasia. This language disorder  afflicts more than 1 in 300 Americans each year, including Wendy Williams and Bruce Willis. “Although music and speech are different in many ways, ranging from pitch to timbre to sound texture, ...

New test rapidly diagnoses Toxoplasma infections and reduces false positives

2024-05-28
An inexpensive, accurate test that detects infections with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii can provide results within 30 minutes from a finger-prick in a doctor’s office or within an hour from a small blood sample tested in a local medical laboratory. The new test can also identify false positives in other types of commercial diagnostic tests for toxoplasmosis, providing swift reassurance to uninfected pregnant women and their doctors and facilitating timely interventions to protect a fetus against toxoplasmosis in acutely infected pregnant mothers. These findings appear in a study, led by toxoplasmosis specialist Rima McLeod, MD, ...

Overlooked lipid connected to ancient cellular pathway with links to cancer

Overlooked lipid connected to ancient cellular pathway with links to cancer
2024-05-28
Within the family of cell membrane lipids known as phosphoinositides and the kinase enzymes that regulate them, phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3Ks) have been cast in a starring role as scientists study their involvement in cancer, diabetes and many cellular activities. The presence of PI3Ks in the scientific limelight has overshadowed other members of this lipid enzyme family, including phosphatidylinositol-5-phosphate 4-kinases (PI5P4Ks). Brooke Emerling, Ph.D., co-director of, and associate professor in, the Cancer Metabolism and Microenvironment Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys, is contributing to a revival of interest in this underappreciated set of enzymes. Emerling and team have ...

Text reminders help connect health care workers to care and improve their mental health

2024-05-28
Health care workers have reported spikes in feeling burnt out in the time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with nearly half saying it took a toll in 2022 compared to 32 percent in 2018. But a new study shows that easy-to-use and accessible platforms may help reverse this trend. Regular, automated text message reminders connecting staff to a mental health platform called “Cobalt,” drove significant improvements in both depression and anxiety scores among employees, according to a new JAMA Network Open study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “What we found shows ...

Optimal cancer-killing t cells discovered

Optimal cancer-killing t cells discovered
2024-05-28
A team of cancer researchers, led by the University of Houston, has discovered a new subset of T cells that may improve the outcome for patients treated with T-cell therapies.   T cell-based immunotherapy has tremendous value to fight, and often eliminate, cancer. The strategy activates a patient’s immune system and engineers a patient’s own T cells to recognize, attack and kill cancer cells. In this way, the body’s own T cells become living drugs.   While T-cell immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, there is still much to learn. Unfortunately, not all patients ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

London’s low emission zones save lives and money, new study finds

University of Houston engineer reinvents ceramics with origami-inspired 3D printing

How an antimalarial drug could help fix genetic diseases

Severe, lasting impairment that some consider ‘worse than death’ affects many residents after long-term care admission

Cognitive and functional decline among long-term care residents

Screening and response for adverse social determinants of health in US emergency departments

How DNA self-organizes in the early embryo

Remembering the cold: scientists discover how memories control metabolism

Phoenician culture spread mainly through cultural exchange

Smoking cessation drug varenicline helps young adults quit vaping

How bacteria in our aging guts can elevate risk of leukemia and perhaps more

Four generations help science explore genome mutation rate

Mathematician and biochemist win transdisciplinary research prize

U.S. Dementia costs to exceed $780 billion this year

Childhood exposure to bacterial toxin may be triggering colorectal cancer epidemic among the young

Epigenetic aging detected in baboons, but physical decline not clearly linked

Statin use may improve survival in patients with some blood cancers

Latest ACS cancer prevention and early detection report: Smoking rates continue historic drop, but cervical cancer prevention is lagging

Toxic blooms in motion: Researchers map algae patterns in Lake Okeechobee

Hoshino wins Wayne Bardin International Travel Award

Comparative analysis of bioactive ingredients and medicinal functions of natural and cultivated Ophiocordyceps sinensis (berk.)

Some protective resin coatings may damage metal artifacts

Investigating charge behavior in multilayer OLEDs using a laser spectroscopic technique

What rattlesnake venom can teach us about evolution: New USF study

A new druggable cancer target: RNA-binding proteins on the cell surface

MIT engineers print synthetic “metamaterials” that are both strong and stretchy

Bacteria killing material creates superbug busting paint

Therapist in your pocket

The antisemitic wave is calming – yet levels remained significantly higher than before the war

Current AI risks more alarming than apocalyptic future scenarios

[Press-News.org] Power imbalance in health care reveals impact of race and role on team dynamics and DEI efforts