Breast Cancer Treatment Experiences of Witness Project of Kansas Participants.

BACKGROUND: African American women continue to die at a higher rate than White women from breast cancer. Kansas has a high death rate among African American women. Their voices needed to be heard. OBJECTIVES: This exploratory study will ask the following questions: 1) Were African American and White women having different breast cancer treatment experiences with their health care providers? And 2) How satisfied were they with their treatment? METHOD: A total of 15 breast cancer survivors were recruited to participate in this qualitative research study. We conducted focus groups in two communities in the Midwest. Forty percent of the sample was White women, 53% of the sample was African American women and 7% of the sample was Hispanic/Latina. RESULTS: Overall six themes emerged. Generally both African American women and White women were satisfied with their health care; both felt they were treated equally by health care professionals. However, they felt that health care professionals should pay more attention to their significant others and to continue to educate young women about early detection. CONCLUSIONS: As a result of the focus groups a gap in services emerged in educating the patient's partners about what is needed for their significant others and what role partners play in the recovery process.

Are we SAFE now? An evaluation of the Seatbelts Are for Everyone teen traffic safety program in Kansas.

Objective: Teens represent the highest risk group for automobile accidents and are almost 3 times as likely to be killed in an accident. Seat belt use interventions are one way to address this issue, and a student-led program in Kansas called Seatbelts Are For Everyone (SAFE) has increased seat belt use for the past decade. An evaluation of SAFE enabled decisions to be made about program improvement and expansion.Methods: Mixed methods examined multiple aspects of the SAFE program, including summative and formative results. Researchers investigated the program through (1) a quasi-experimental observation to explore whether seat belt use at schools implementing SAFE for the first time was higher than at non-SAFE and (2) stakeholder interviews at SAFE schools. Each method examined whether SAFE programs accomplished goals set by program staff and how SAFE could better meet schools' needs.Results: Summative results suggest that SAFE affects seat belt use. It is less influential on distracted driving but has a small but significant influence on that behavior. Stakeholders cited infrastructure and functional challenges affecting implementation, highlighting ways in which SAFE program staff could improve program compliance and outcomes. Formative recommendations included curriculum support, sharing among SAFE schools, and increasing student leadership opportunities.Conclusions: The evaluation of SAFE suggests that students are receptive to programs about seat belt and traffic safety. States may consider the recommendations for improvement of this program with other published evaluations and programs to determine how best to implement similar programs in their communities.

College Students Opinions on Gun Violence.

Gun violence and control issues have become serious public health problems. This study gathered the opinions from 419 college students from a Midwestern University. Participants were asked about beliefs about purchasing assault weapons, beliefs about bringing handguns to college campuses and beliefs about contributing factors that lead to gun violence. Participants completed surveys online. The findings showed that overall 54 % of respondents believed that military assault weapons should be banned and 53 % agree that teachers should be allowed to carry a registered handgun on campus. There were statistically significant differences between males and females on these issues. For instance, females believed military assault weapons and high capacity magazines should be banned more than 1.9 times (p = .004) p < .05 compared to male students. On the other hand, female students were more likely to believe that school teachers should be allowed to carry registered handguns on school campuses more than 1.55 times (p = .046) p < .05 compared to their male student counterparts. There were no statistically significant differences between ethnic groups. The top four contributing factors that students believed led to gun violence were decline in parenting and family values (17 %), gang involvement (14 %), bullying (13.8 %) and guns being easy to obtain (13.8 %). Limitations and implications for policy work are discussed.