Browsing by Subject "Minority communities"
Item eHealth Effectiveness Model, a focus on the Hispanic minority(2010-08) Soueissi, Lama; Mackert, Michael; Love, BradHealth communications providers strive to increase the health literacy of patients and care takers. Basic health literacy is a measure of a person’s ability to understand and act according to appropriate health information. The rise in the number of people attaining basic health literacy increases the amount of positive health behavior in the aggregate. Therefore, health communication providers can create a direct impact on tangible health results in a given population. The introduction of new technology has led to new ways of distributing health information, specifically through online media. Along with a new method of communication comes a need for a new way of evaluating it. As new media emerge and proliferate in the marketplace, different populations’ levels of health literacy become shaped in previously unpredictable ways. Current research suggests that significant differences in wealth and pervasive cultural features account for why distinct populations respond to these developments differently. Thus, the task of determining health communications’ success overall just got harder. It is now necessary to reassess health communications providers’ efficiency and effectiveness with regard to particular minority populations such as Hispanic/Latino adults. Throughout this paper, I refer to the Hispanic/Latino population’s unique characteristics as a case study for the derivation and application of universal health communication values. Thus, the purpose of this report is, based on current findings, to expose the primary values that describe and prescribe the efficacy of online health communication geared towards minorities such as Hispanic/Latino adults residing in the United States. This report concludes that the effectiveness of health information online is a function of three elements: access, quality, and communication strategy. Access represents the extent to which the intended user can search online for the sought-after health information, employ techniques to locate the intended information, and benefit from the search and comprehend the content. The quality prong of the health related Web content represents the useful indicia of accuracy and completeness of the information provided. The first two factors are a sine qua non for a robust health communication campaign. The communication strategy determines the audience reach and the relevance of the health message; both of which ultimately are the driving force for achieving lasting health behavior modification. Health information providers must periodically assess their services along the model’s benchmarks in order to achieve the highest possible levels of health literacy in their target populations and overall. Providers may engage in self-evaluation in order to gauge their own effectiveness, make improvements wherever necessary, and thereby ensure continued conformity to the aforementioned values. If/when these market players are unable or unwilling to adhere to this rubric, the public sphere may need to enforce it as a last resort. This paper does not investigate the merits of either public or private systems of governance; no matter how compliance is achieved, the modern promotion of optimal health literacy in minority communities (and hence, overall) requires that all three elements comprise a new, uniform model for online health communication initiatives.Item "In the neighborhood" : city planning, archaeology, and cultural heritage politics at St. Paul United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas(2010-08) Skipper, Jodi; Franklin, Maria; Gordom, Edmund T.; Strong, Pauline T.; Thompson, Shirley E.; Wilson, Samuel M.What happens to a historically African American church when its local African American community no longer exists? Can attempts to emphasize its historic heritage help it to survive? In this dissertation, I consider the racial politics of urban gentrification and the ways in which one historic Black church community utilizes cultural heritage politics as a survival strategy and resistance to city planning in the city of Dallas, Texas. This case study is part of a much broader phenomenon dating to the post-WWII era whereby U.S. local, state, and federal government officials “redeveloped” urban neighborhoods as part of urban renewal plans. Some of these government actions resulted in drastic changes to neighborhood landscapes, displacing entire “minority” communities. Affected by similar circumstances, the St. Paul Church community chose to remain in its original neighborhood and restore its historic building, rather than bend to the will of Dallas city planners. In particular, I examine two church heritage projects; a public archaeology project in which a shotgun house site was excavated on the church property and a public history project which resulted in an interpretive history exhibition on the church. I examine how this church community became involved in these two projects and whether these approaches are practical to the historic preservation of this church community. Basic contributions of this work include: 1) filling gaps in public archaeology research by examining a public archaeology project, beyond the excavation, and critiquing its viability in jeopardized urban contexts, 2) analyzing strategies of political mobilization around heritage politics; 3) determining which Black communities are more likely to engage in and benefit from this type of political mobilization; and 4) problematizing what constitutes giving the power to a community to negotiate its past in the present. This dissertation project finds that although African-American and other minority groups are often politically and economically disadvantaged when challenging eminent domain abuse, these communities are not powerless. The St. Paul community’s utilization of heritage politics as a means to avert eminent domain abuse is one case in point.