Article Summary:The article I chose is entitled “Neighbourhood Disadvantage, Poor Social Conditions, and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence among African American Adults in the Jackson Heart Study” (Barber et al, 2016), and examines the impact of socioeconomic factors on the incidence of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. It provides the results of a study which evaluated the impact of “neighbourhood-level social conditions” (Barber et al, 2016, p. 2219), such as violence and social cohesion, on higher incidences of cardiovascular disease. The study drew data from the Jackson Heart Study (for medical data), as well as the 2000 US census (for sociological data). The study concluded that while there appeared to be no relationship between these socioeconomic factors and incidences of cardiovascular disease in African American men, there was a clear indication that these particular socio-economic factors contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in African American women: “Among African American women, each standard deviation increase in neighbourhood disadvantage was associated with a 25% increased risk of CVD after covariate adjustment” (Barber et al, 2016, p. 2219). Finally, the article concluded that policies should be implemented to help alleviate this increased risk for women falling within this social demographic.
Database Search Methodology:
Because I knew I was looking for a scholarly peer-reviewed research article within the fields of medicine and socio-economics, and then chose the ‘articles by topic” option. I saw that there were different options that might be appropriate, including “health sciences” and “human services”. I therefore decided to adopt a different approach and did a key-word search using the multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Complete. I chose this approach because I knew that articles on my chosen area of research were likely to fall under different topic categories, and I knew from reading the Walden Library guide to research (Walden University Library, 2016) that this search option would allow me to search multiple topic categories at once. I searched using the key-words “Disease” and “African American” and found an article that interested me almost immediately, entitled “Neighbourhood Disadvantage, Poor Social Conditions, and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence Among African American Adults in the Jackson Heart Study” (Barber et al, 2016). I could tell that it was an appropriate scholarly sources because it was written by scholars who are “experts in their fields” (Cornell University Library, 2016, n.p.). I found this experience extremely beneficial, as it allowed me to practice different research approaches; the library website and database collections are both user-friendly and comprehensive, and I now feel confident about my ability to use them in my research. I used the scholarly writing resource (Walden University Writing Center, 2016) to help me consider how my chosen article might fit into late research and writing.
Article Assessment:
A key strength of this study is that it conducted research using a large and reasonably representative sample size: overall it examined data from 2652 African American women, and 1444 African American men, between the ages of 21 and 93 years; the study asserts that “The sample has been shown to be approximately representative of the African American population in the geographic area of interest” (Barber et al, 2016, p. 2220). This comment, however, also reveals a key weakness of the study: although the aim of the study was to make a generalized observation concerning neighbourhood disadvantage, this study focused on only a single geographical area; it is therefore possible that these results cannot be safely generalised to other African American neighbourhoods in different geographical areas. A second key strength of this study was the date of publication: published in 2016, this article is providing up-to-date research in the field. Overall, however, this study produced intriguing results using sound and clearly demonstrated methodologies, making it a strong and credible scholarly source.
- Barber, S., Hickson, D. A., Wang, X., Sims, M., Nelson, C., and Diez-Roux, A. V. (2016). “Neighbourhood Disadvantage, Poor Social Conditions, and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence among African American Adults in the Jackson Heart Study.” American Journal of Public Health, 106.12, 2219-2227.
- Cornell University Library (2016, Sept. 7). “Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria: Introduction & Definitions.” Retrieved from: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/scholarlyjournals.
- Walden University Library (2016). “The Research Process.” Retrieved from: http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/library/researchprocess.
- Walden University Writing Center (2016). “Scholarly Writing: Overview.” Retrieved from: http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/scholarly#s-lg-box-3274265.
