Vote-by-Mail: COVID-19 and the 2020 Presidential Primaries.

In this year of pandemic, it seems assured that a record number of citizens will choose to vote by mail. But approval of this method of voting appears increasingly divided along partisan lines, thanks in part to President Trump's declamations. Evidence from the presidential primaries held earlier this year indicates that allegiance to the president, as well as relative lack of concern about the COVID-19 virus, made voters less likely to choose to vote by mail.

Religious affiliation, health behaviors and outcomes: Nashville REACH 2010.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationships of religious involvement and affiliation with health behavior and conditions. METHODS: A survey (n = 3014) conducted for the Nashville REACH 2010 project included questions about religious affiliation and practice as well as health behaviors and conditions. RESULTS: Bivariate analyses indicated negative associations between religious involvement and health, along with differences between religious affiliations/groups. This relationship changed, however, after controlling for demographic differences and individual differences in religious involvement. CONCLUSIONS: Religious groups share not only beliefs, but also socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural similarities that must be taken into account in research examining religion and health.

A conceptual model for using action inquiry technologies to address disparities in depression.

Disparities in depression care remain an important problem in the United States. Action inquiry technologies may assist individuals and communities in their attempts to reduce or eliminate these disparities--and the multiple factors contributing to them--through a recurring cycle of planning, action, evaluation, and new actions based on reflections about what occurred during previous actions. This article will briefly review different action inquiry methods--specifically, participatory action research (PAR) in communities and action research in physicians' practices and offices of continuing medical education (CME). The authors develop a conceptual model in which those involved in providing, receiving, and improving depression care can use action inquiry strategies that are coordinated using the domains-based outcomes assessment model. This conceptual model may help CME planners collaborate with others to address disparities in depression care.

Disparities in smoking: data from the Nashville REACH 2010 project.

The Nashville REACH 2010 project is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce health disparities in diabetes and heart disease among African Americans in Nashville, Tenn. While Tennessee has the third highest smoking rate (26.1%) in the United States, there are few appropriate local data useful for planning and evaluating local antismoking interventions. Data gathered for Nashville REACH 2010 from 4 large random telephone surveys were pooled to produce a database (n = 15,076) to define the extent of the local smoking disparity and the subgroups with the highest and lowest prevalence of smoking. African American women were least likely to smoke (21.3%) followed by white women (24.9%), and then African American and white men (27.3% and 27.9%, respectively). Among African American subgroups, smoking was lowest in students (10.8%) and retirees (17.1%) and highest in unemployed men (45.9%). In a logistic regression, smoking was highest among single men, the lowest educational level, the unemployed, the lowest income groups, and those between 40 and 50 years of age.