Inside this issue

Health Behaviors and Outcomes: A Comparison between African Americans with Spinal Cord Injury, Traumatic

Brain Injury, and in the General Population in South Carolina

Spinal Column

with Vertebrae

Cervical

Vertebrae

(7)

C1-C7

Thoracic

Vertebrae

(12)

T1-T12

Lumbar

Vertebrae

(5)

L1-L5

Sacrum

(5 - fused)

Coccyx

(4 - fused)

Ene P. Ekoja

In the United States (US), about 20% of persons with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

are African American, and about 25% of persons with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) are

African American. These numbers are large when considering only 13.1% of the US

population is African American. So far, little research has been done on preventative

behaviors, risk behaviors, and chronic diseases present after SCI or TBI, and only a

small portion of the research has focused on underserved racial-ethnic populations,

such as African Americans.

This research is important because African Americans, in general, are at a greater

risk for developing many diseases in comparison to other racial-ethnic groups. This

research can inform healthcare professionals of the needs of African Americans with

SCI or TBI in terms of preventative behaviors, risk behaviors, and chronic disease

screening and management.

Importance of the

Study

1

Meet our Student

Researchers

1

Preventative

Behaviors

2

Risk Behaviors 3

Chronic Diseases 4

Thank you! 4

Meet our Student Researchers

LONGEVITY AFTER

INJURY PROJECT

College of Health

Professions

77 President St.

MSC 700

Charleston, SC 29425

Phone: (843) 792-2605

Chelsea Whitlock Katie Voss

Ene worked with our team

in 2012 and helped to

identify the prevalence of

protective health behav-

iors (actions decreasing

the likelihood of getting

sick) among African Amer-

icans with SCI. She recent-

ly graduated from Spel-

man College with a degree

in Biology.

Chelsea also joined our

team on this study for the

summer of 2012, finding

out if African Americans

with SCI are more likely to

report risk behaviors

(actions increasing the like-

lihood) for chronic diseases.

She is currently a senior at

Spelman College, pursuing

a degree in Sociology.

Katie interned with our

team in the summer of

2013, and helped to

identify the prevalence

of chronic diseases in

African Americans after

SCI or TBI. Katie recently

graduated from Brown

University with a degree

in Community Health.

Preventative Behaviors

A person’s health depends a lot on their behaviors, actions, and life choices. People can choose to en-gage in preventative behaviors (actions decreasing one’s chance of getting sick) or risk behaviors (actions increasing one’s chance of getting sick). We will first look at the preventative behaviors.

Research has shown people with an SCI or TBI are more likely to have health complications (known as secondary health conditions), such as respiratory complications, pressure sores, and urinary tract infec-tions. Due to the increased likelihood of developing secondary health conditions, we wanted to see if African Americans with SCI and African Americans with TBI engaged in more protective behaviors than African Americans in the general population.

We studied the preventative behaviors of getting a flu shot and a pneumonia shot because vaccines can help decrease your chance of getting a potentially deadly illness. We also studied the preventative behavior of having a blood cholesterol screening because this screening helps detect your risk of heart or blood circulation problems. In the above graphs, we found :

African Americans with SCI were most likely to get vaccines out of all three groups. African Americans with TBI were more likely to get vaccines than the general African American

population. African Americans with SCI were less likely to get their blood cholesterol level checked. African Americans with TBI were the least likely to get their blood cholesterol level checked.

This shows that African Americans with SCI or TBI were more likely to participate in protective behav-iors related to secondary conditions, like getting a vaccine to prevent respiratory complications. How-ever, African Americans were less likely to engage in protective behaviors not related to secondary conditions, like getting cholesterol checked to identify their risk of heart disease.

General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population

Risk Behaviors

We will now look at risk behaviors, which are actions that may increase one’s chance of becoming sick.

Due to the increased chance of developing secondary health conditions, we wanted to see if African

Americans with SCI or TBI engaged in more risky behaviors (e.g., smoking more cigarettes or drinking

more alcohol) than African Americans in the general population.

Smoking cigarettes increases your chance of getting cancer in your lungs. Drinking too much alcohol on

many occasions can cause negative health effects in several organs in the body. Both of these risk

behaviors can lead to negative, long-term health complications and eventually death.

As seen in the graphs above, compared to the general population, both African Americans with SCI and Afri-

can Americans with TBI were more likely to engage in risk behaviors, such as smoking and consuming alco-

hol. However, those with TBI had the highest likelihood of engaging in these risk behaviors, which may put

them at risk for health complications.

*Only among those who reported smoking every day or some days

**Only among those who reported drinking alcohol in the past 30 days

African Americans with SCI were more likely to report smoking cigarettes.

African Americans with TBI were the most likely to report smoking.

Both African Americans with SCI and TBI were less likely to try to quit smoking (decreasing one’s risk behaviors).

African Americans with an SCI were more likely to report consuming alcohol in the past 30 days.

African Americans with TBI were most likely to report consuming alcohol in the past 30 days.

Both African Americans with SCI and TBI were more likely to binge drink (increasing one’s risk behav-iors).

General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population

Chronic Diseases

African Americans with SCI are about 2.5 times

more likely to report having had a stroke compared

to the general African American population.

African Americans with TBI are about 6.5 times

more likely to report having had a stroke.

African Americans with TBI are about 3 times

more likely to report having been told by a

healthcare provider that they have coronary

heart disease.

African Americans with TBI are about 2 times

more likely to report having been told by a healthcare provider that they have hypertension.

Hypertension

Coronary Heart Disease

Stroke

Thank You! Thank you so much for your participation in this important study! We had 497 participants! This study’s

success could not have been achieved without the participation of each one of you. Information from this

study will be used to inform health care professionals as well as public policymakers.

You can keep up with our study information and our day-to-day activities by visiting our sites listed below:

Website: www.longevityafterinjury.com

Blog: www.sciandtbiresearch.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/longevityafterinjuryproject

General African American Population SCI Population TBI Population