Browsing by Subject "United States"

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    A comparison of physician emigration from Africa to the United States of America between 2005 and 2015
    (2017) Duvivier, Robbert J; Burch, Vanessa C; Boulet, John R
    BACKGROUND: Migration of health professionals has been a cause for global concern, in particular migration from African countries with a high disease burden and already fragile health systems. An estimated one fifth of African-born physicians are working in high-income countries. Lack of good data makes it difficult to determine what constitutes "African" physicians, as most studies do not distinguish between their country of citizenship and country of training. Thus, the real extent of migration from African countries to the United States (US) remains unclear. This paper quantifies where African migrant physicians come from, where they were educated, and how these trends have changed over time. METHODS: We combined data from the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates with the 2005 and 2015 American Medical Association Physician Masterfiles. Using a repeated cross-sectional study design, we reviewed the available data, including medical school attended, country of medical school, and citizenship when entering medical school. RESULTS: The outflow of African-educated physicians to the US has increased over the past 10 years, from 10 684 in 2005 to 13 584 in 2015 (27.1% increase). This represents 5.9% of all international medical graduates in the US workforce in 2015. The number of African-educated physicians who graduated from medical schools in sub-Saharan countries was 2014 in 2005 and 8150 in 2015 (304.6% increase). We found four distinct categorizations of African-trained physicians migrating to the US: (1) citizens from an African country who attended medical school in their own country (86.2%, n = 11,697); (2) citizens from an African country who attended medical school in another African country (2.3%, n = 317); (3) US citizens who attended medical school in an African country (4.0%, n = 537); (4) citizens from a country outside Africa, and other than the United States, who attended medical school in an African country (7.5%, n = 1013). Overall, six schools in Africa provided half of all African-educated physicians. CONCLUSIONS: The number of African-educated physicians in the US has increased over the past 10 years. We have distinguished four migration patterns, based on citizenship and country of medical school. The majority of African graduates come to the US from relatively few countries, and from a limited number of medical schools. A proportion are not citizens of the country where they attended medical school, highlighting the internationalization of medical education.
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    Open Access
    Crime in the suburbs: a critical discourse analysis of how suburban residents of South Africa, and the United States talk about crime on local Facebook groups
    (2024) Maguire, Zachary; Bosch, Tanja
    This dissertation aims to explore the ways in which suburban residents of Cape Town South Africa, and New Jersey, USA use local Facebook groups to talk about crime. While these locations may have many differences, in their respective local Facebook groups they exhibit very similar fears around crime. As suburban development continues to grow in both these countries, examining the culture these spaces help shape remains a valuable project. Notably, authors such as Rachel Heiman, and Nina Eliasoph have worked to outline the ways in which suburban residents work to create and sustain their identity in an American suburban context. Nicky Falkof has worked to do the same for the South African context, showing how fear of crime is reproduced on local Facebook groups. However, this dissertation aims to take these concepts a step further through conceptualizing this culture of fear as a global phenomenon and linking together these two locations. Utilizing scholarship on colonialism, and whiteness, this dissertation will illustrate how local Facebook groups work to reinforce an existing ideological construction of suburban spaces built on colonial ideals of domesticity, and individualism. Through a critical discourse analysis of posts and comments found on local suburban groups, in New Jersey and Cape Town, I illustrate how these spaces serve as key locations for the performance of a middle-class position, where residents work to both contest and reinforce middle-class ideals, of personal responsibility, and rational discourse. All of this is then framed in an economic and social situation of increasing precarity, wherein suburbs and their residents are forced to make sense of increasingly unstable subject positions.
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    The relationship of plasma Trans fatty acids with dietary inflammatory index among US adults
    (2017) Mazidi, Mohsen; Gao, Hong‐Kai; Shivappa, Nitin; Wirth, Michael D; Hebert, James R; Kengne, André Pascal
    BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that trans fatty acids (TFAs) play an important role in cardiovascular diseases. We investigated the association between plasma TFAs and the dietary inflammatory index (DII) ™ in US adults. METHODS: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) participants with data on plasma TFAs measured from 1999 to 2010 were included. Energy-adjusted-DII ™ (E-DII ™) expressed per 1000 kcal was calculated from 24-h dietary recalls. All statistical analyses accounted for the survey design and sample weights. RESULTS: Of the 5446 eligible participants, 46.8% (n = 2550) were men. The mean age of the population was 47.1 years overall, 47.8 years for men and 46.5 years for women (p = 0.09). After adjustment for C-reactive protein, body-mass-index, smoking, race, age, education, and marital status in linear regressions, trans 9-hexadecenoic acid [β coefficient 0.068 (95% CI: 0.032 to 0.188)], trans 11-octadecenoic acid [β coefficient 0.143 (95% CI: 0.155 to 0.310)], trans 9-octadecenoic acid [β coefficient 0.122 (95% CI: 0.120 to 0.277)], trans 9, and trans 12-octadienoic acid [β coefficient 0.103 (95% CI: 0.090 to 0.247)] were positively associated with the DII (all p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The association of plasma TFAs with a marker of dietary inflammation suggests an underlying mechanism in the initiation and progression of cardiovascular diseases.