APHA
Back to Annual Meeting
APHA 2006 APHA
Back to Annual Meeting
APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing
Session: Medical Imaging in the U.S
5064.0: Wednesday, November 08, 2006: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Oral
Medical Imaging in the U.S
Medical imaging is one of the fastest-growing components of healthcare, and rapidly-increasing overall healthcare costs are again making headlines. However, imaging has been very little studied from a health research services perspective. We propose a panel devoted to medical imaging consisting of three papers. The first paper (Dynamics and Causes of Medical Imaging's Extraordinarily Rapid Growth, presenter Jonathan Sunshine) identifies the patterns in the growth of imaging, doing so in a way that contributes to understanding their causes and possible remedies. The results of the first paper have important implications for utilization management and for the nature of appropriateness criteria. Increased utilization of imaging can have benefits. Increased use of mammography screening has been clearly shown to have a sizeable contribution to recent reductions in breast cancer mortality. However, there remain variations in breast cancer mortality rates by race and ethnicity. The objective of the second paper (Racial and ethnic disparities in mammography screening over the period 1996 – 2003, presenter Cristian Meghea) is to measure racial and ethnic disparities in mammography screening in 2003 and trends over time since 1996. The study finds some disparities clearly remain and analyzes their sources. Disparities in health care outside of imaging have been extensively documented, but causes and potential remedies for disparities have been little explored in any field. The third paper (Location decisions of mammography facilities: racial/ethnic disparities across zip-codes, presenter Mythreyi Bhargavan) explores one possibly major and remediable cause of disparities—namely, facilities may disproportionately fail to locate in minority neighborhoods and/or facilities in these communities may have relatively low commitment to patient service. The study finds that zip codes with high percentages of blacks or Hispanics are much less likely to have a mammography facility than predominantly white zip-codes, and explores the extent to which this is explicable by factors such as socio-economic characteristics of the neighborhoods.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: 1. Identify the patterns in the growth of medical imaging in recent years 2. Assess the extent of disparities in mammography screening between white, black, Hispanic, and Asian women over the period 1996-2003 3. Recognize one possibly major and remediable cause of disparities—namely, facilities may disproportionately fail to locate in minority neighborhoods
Presider(s):Jonathan Sunshine, PhD
8:30 AMMedical Imaging in US
Jonathan Sunshine, PhD
8:50 AMDynamics and Causes of Medical Imaging's Extraordinarily Rapid Growth
Jonathan Sunshine, PhD, Cristian Meghea, PhD, Mythreyi Bhargavan, PhD
9:10 AMRacial and ethnic disparities in mammography screening over the period 1996 - 2003
Mythreyi Bhargavan, PhD, Jonathan Sunshine, PhD, Cristian Meghea, PhD
9:30 AMLocation decisions of mammography facilities: Racial/ethnic disparities across zip-codes
Mythreyi Bhargavan, PhD, Jonathan Sunshine, PhD
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Medical Care
Endorsed by:Vietnam Caucus
CE Credits:CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA