Abstracts
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12503/21673
Browse
Browsing Abstracts by Author "Abraham, Stacy"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item An Evaluation of Attitudes and Understanding of Vaccinations in Rural Populations(2017-03-14) Mamun, Md Abdullah; Handoyo, Anthony; Pulvino, John; Abraham, Stacy; Kaushal, DeepikaBackground: Recently in the media, there has been a movement to abstain from childhood immunizations. At the same time, a rise in the rate of preventable childhood diseases for which there are available immunizations has also been witnessed. It is known that the attitude towards vaccination of both the parents and providers and the knowledge about vaccines all influence vaccination compliance. Methods: My colleagues and I surveyed rural communities in Texas to assess parental knowledge and how that affected vaccination compliance. Clifton, Texas is located in Bosque County. As of the census of 2000, there were 3,542 people. Plainview, Texas is located in Hale County. The current census data reports a population of 22,194. Bilingual versions of surveys developed by Zingg et al were distributed to participants with children up to 10 years of age who live in or near the rural towns of Clifton or Plainview between the fall of 2015 and the spring of 2016. Results: When analyzing survey results, correct knowledge was estimated by summing over the number of correct answers for the 11 items in the survey. Using a multiple linear regression model our study revealed that here is statistically significant difference in knowledge on vaccination for parents who has a Bachelor degree or more in comparison to parents who are high school graduate or less after adjusting for the effects of race and number of children. However, there is no statistically significant difference in knowledge on vaccination for parents who has some college degree in comparison to parents who are high school graduate or less after adjusting for the effects of race and number of children. Conclusions: On an average, parent’s knowledge on vaccination increases as their number of children increases after adjusting for the effects of educational status and race. There is no statistical difference on vaccination knowledge in White versus Hispanic and White versus Other racial groups after adjusting for the effects of parent’s education and number of children.Item An Evaluation of Socioeconomic Factors and Health Status on Health-Related Quality Of Life (HRQoL) in Rural Texas(2017-03-14) Sanchez, Roberto; Abraham, Stacy; Mamun, Md Abdullah; Gibson, John Dr.; Urbanczyk, RachelPurpose: HRQoL allows us to focus on how the individual perceives his or her own impairments of health. HRQoL in rural areas is rarely examined, yet its measurements can help identify significant health disparity issues and community burdens that will further highlight the needs in communities. We hypothesized that demographic factors and mental illness would have a significant impact on HRQoL in rural Texas communities. Methods: A cross-sectional survey in the form of a questionnaire was completed by 191 patients in 2 different rural Texas communities. Survey questions were taken from the CDC Health Related Quality of Life-14 “Healthy Days Measure” system and from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System questionnaire. Relationship of socioeconomic factors and health status with HRQoL were assessed using univariate and multiple variable analysis. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to examine the mean number of unhealthy days in Texas versus the two rural communities in the study. Results: After adjusting for age and gender, we found that on average Hispanics reported a significantly less number of physical or mental unhealthy days in comparison to Whites (p-value = 0.0167). We also found that people with high income reported significantly less number of physical and mental unhealthy days on average (p-value for Conclusions: The results suggest that HRQoL can be influenced by many factors, including income level, race, and location. Our results identified that mental health factors are an important component affecting HRQoL and should be studied further in rural Texas communities. Focus on mental health programs and economic development could be beneficial for these communities.