Interleukin-6 responses to acute stress are not altered in alcohol use disorder despite elevated baseline inflammation.

Teaching skin of colour (SOC, pigmented skin) is crucial to ensuring equitable dermatology care. There are differences in skin genetics and biology, susceptibility to specific skin pathology, pathogenesis and clinical presentations of common diseases and cultural practices. Historically, dermatology textbooks and academic journals have been skewed towards lighter skin tones, wherein more research and clinical images were presented. In education, descriptive terminology has similarly reflected this bias; entrenched adjectives such as ‘red’ rather than ‘erythema’ favour lighter skin tones. This impacts the knowledge and confidence of healthcare practitioners, who often feel and are less competent in treating skin pathology in SOC, ultimately resulting in a lower standard of healthcare to patients with SOC. To bridge this gap, efforts to increase representation of SOC have been made. In the context of teaching, dermatology residents are exposed to SOC-related lectures or dedicated rotations, specific SOC textbooks, and are increasingly training in an academic environment where the importance of incorporating SOC into curricula is more widely recognised. Reported efforts to increase SOC teaching in medical students or family medicine practitioners has often been the addition of a SOC module. Indeed, the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) has developed a dedicated online SOC curriculum. These courses have been shown to be effective in improving confidence and competence. In Africa, this is particularly crucial as most patients have SOC – while race is a poor surrogate for skin colour, the South African 2022 consensus demonstrated that approximately 91% of the population have SOC. Additionally, both the private and public healthcare sectors in South Africa have less dermatologists per million population when compared to the World Health Organization suggested ratio. Many patients may therefore initially consult a generalist for skin dermatoses – appropriate training that is inclusive of the most prevalent population demographic is crucial.