The US-Caribbean Health Disparities Research Collaboration

The US-Caribbean Health Disparities Research Collaboration

Secondary analyses of regional health inequalities using publically available data.

The US National Institute on Minority health and Health Disparities funded a 5-year program (2011 to 2016) to explore and compare for the first time health disparities among African-descent populations in the Caribbean and the US. The work used published articles, Caribbean health databases, and open-access data to build an evidence-based picture of Caribbean health disparities.

You can

download an example of our briefings, which describes Caribbean disparities in life expectancy.

Our analytical outputs can be grouped into three types: systematic reviews, Caribbean-wide analyses, and country-specific analyses.

Systematic reviews An important component of the work was the production of systematic reviews to summarize the available information on a range of health concerns. Published systematic review articles are as follows:

• Brown CR, Hambleton I, Hercules SM, Unwin N, Murphy MM, Nigel Harris et al. Social determinants of prostate cancer in the Caribbean: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health. 2018 Jul 20;18(1):900. Download the article.

• Brown CR, Hambleton IR, Hercules SM, Alvarado M, Unwin N, Murphy MM et al. Social determinants of breast cancer in the Caribbean: a systematic review. Int J Equity Health. 2017 Apr 5;16(1):60. Download the article

• Brown CR, Hambleton IR, Sobers-Grannum N, Hercules SM, Unwin N, Nigel Harris E et al. Social determinants of depression and suicidal behaviour in the Caribbean: a systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2017 Jun 15;17(1):577. Download the article

• Guariguata L, Brown C, Sobers N, Hambleton I, Samuels TA, Unwin N. An updated systematic review and meta-analysis on the social determinants of diabetes and related risk factors in the Caribbean. Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2018 Dec 17;42:e171. Download the article.

Caribbean secondary analyses Secondary analyses were performed to provide Caribbean-level health-inequality outputs, using either Latin Ameerica or the united States as comparator groups:

• Hambleton IR, Howitt C, Jeyaseelan S, Murphy MM, Hennis AJ, Wilks R et al. Trends in Longevity in the Americas: Disparities in Life Expectancy in Women. PLoS One, 2015. Download the article.

• Hambleton IR, Jeyaseelan S, Howitt C, Sobers-Grannum N, Hennis AJ, Wilks RJ et al. Cause-of-death disparities in the African diaspora: exploring differences among shared-heritage populations. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jul;105 Suppl 3:S491-8. Download the article.

• Hambleton IR, Jeyaseelan SM, Howitt C, Hennis AJ. Monitoring Caribbean tobacco use: baseline adolescent smoking prevalence and regional disparities. Salud Publica Mex. 2017;59Suppl 1(Suppl 1):12-21. Download the article.

Country-level secondary analyses Country level information, when available and accessible, was used provide in-country analyses of health inequalities.

• Bidulescu A, Ferguson TS, Hambleton I, Younger-Coleman N, Francis D, Bennett N et al. Educational health disparities in hypertension and diabetes mellitus among African descent populations in the Caribbean and the USA: a comparative analysis from the Spanish town cohort (Jamaica) and the Jackson heart study (USA). Int J Equity Health. 2017 Feb 14;16(1):33. Download the article

• Morey F, Hambleton IR, Unwin N, Samuels TA. Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Premature Adult Mortality in Belize 2008-2010. PLoS One. 2016 Sep 19;11(9):e0163172. Download the article.