United States

Long before launching the global “war on terror,” the United States launched what it called the “war on drugs,” a law enforcement and crime control effort targeting its own people. Ostensibly color-blind, the US drug war has been and continues to be waged overwhelmingly against black Americans. Although white Americans constitute the large majority of drug offenders, African American communities continue as the principal “fronts” in this unjust effort. Defenders of the current anti-drug efforts claim they want to protect poor minority communities from addiction as well as the disorder,...

Given the rapidity of change in both higher education and health care, re-examining the values and precepts that undergird the profession of college health is an ongoing need. Reported in this article are the results of a structured process in which a group of college health professionals from California, along with others interested in the health of college students, examined several trends affecting higher education and health; considered possible scenarios for these sectors; created a shared vision for the future of college health; and developed strategies useful in attaining that...

There are currently no systematic and reliable means of evaluating the incidence and prevalence of disease in United States refugee populations. Barriers include inadequate surveillance mechanisms and an inability to distinguish refugees from the foreign-born or ethnic groupings. A date set, created for administrative purposes, of a cohort of 2,361 adult refugees who sought health care services in a large US country health system from October, 1995 to February, 1998 was studied. A subset of 187 refugee medical records was reviewed to assess whether refugee status was documented and...