The Stress in Urban Environments: Managing Stress to Achieve Academic Success

African American children are less likely to receive a high school diploma compared to whites and more whites than Blacks earn a bachelor’s degree, a statistic that is associated with lack of employment and economic instability. An even more serious problem is that children who are living in urban environments with stress related trauma, such as COVID-19, violence, PTSD, are at greater risk of low-educational achievement. This pilot intervention addresses two research questions:

1. Are African-American youth who received culturally stress related techniques more likely to reduce their anxiety and achieve academic success within 12 months than those who do not receive stress related techniques;

2. Can an intervention targeting anxiety and barriers to academic success among African American youth effectively decrease anxiety and promote academic success among African American youth.

The University of Cincinnati has a high need for mental health support for faculty, staff, and students. Our large university has a wealth of resources but there is frequently a systemic disconnect between those in need of support and the resources available to provide help. The aim of this study is to create a collective, proactive, and upstream approach to mental health by creating a culture of well-being.

Assess the effectiveness of using Virtual Reality for Caregiver Training

According to the National Family Caregiving Alliance, approximately 34.2 million Americans provide unpaid care to adults aged 50 or older. These caregivers are often thrust into their roles unexpectedly and may receive no training. The Caregiver Support Program at the Council on Aging (COA) provides one-on-one support for family or volunteer caregivers for southwestern Ohio. This proposed project aims to investigate the effectiveness of using virtual reality to enhance Council on Aging’s training program and specifically evaluate whether virtual reality (in partnership with Live Well Collaborative) can be an effective training platform for family and informal caregivers.

Computerized Multimodal Behavior Analysis in Community-based Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Assessment

Recent advances in computerized multimodal behavior analysis have made it possible to measure patients’ visual, vocal, and verbal behaviors and hold great promise for improving PTSD assessment reliability automatically and objectively. This proposal aims to investigate computerized multimodal behavior analysis as an improvement over patient-report and gold-standard Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) assessment methods.

Cancer Community Research Advocates: Helping Community Become Research Ready

Cincinnati has a large African American population (42%) which for more than two decades now have the highest death rate from all cancers. Cancer research is critical to understanding what causes and prevents cancer, but racial/ethnic minorities are less likely to participate in cancer research studies compared to non-minorities. Equitable participation in research becomes an important tool in the fight against cancer disparities. As the UCCC is seeking to support the reduction of cancer burden and promote health equity across the Greater Cincinnati area, it will need to support efforts to encourage much needed minority participation in clinical and population-based cancer research studies. Building on the Research Ready materials previously created by members of the We Engage for Health Program team, this proposal seeks to create, test, and support a Cancer-Focused Community Research Advocates Program in collaboration with the West End Community Research Advisory Board.

Story-Based Self-Empowering Program to Improve Food Literacy in Breast Cancer Survivors

In the United States, breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women and second leading cause of cancer death. Mortality rates for breast cancer are significantly higher in Black/African American women, with disparities noted when compared with Caucasian/White women and those from other ethnic groups. Nutrition is critical following breast cancer treatment in order to rebuild tissue, manage body weight and maintain overall health. Further, as obesity is a recognized risk factor for both the development of breast cancer as well as its recurrence and mortality, it is important to support women in managing their weight post-diagnosis. To this end, both nutrition and food literacies are needed. Nutrition literacy ensures people can find, make use of, and apply nutrition information while food literacy ensures they have the knowledge and skills to plan, manage, select, prepare, and eat well. Our ongoing health promotion programming uses the power of stories to engage and make complex information more relatable, easy to understand and memorable. Therefore, the objective of this proposed two-phase project is to codesign an online, story-based nutrition and food literacy education program with and for minority breast cancer survivors and examine its effectiveness and feasibility through pilot testing.

Improving Adherence Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment among Low-Income African American Women: A Photovoice Public Health Study

Despite improvements in cervical cancer treatability, there continue to be gaps in cervical cancer incidence and mortality rate among African American and low-income populations.1 These disparities are largely attributed to social determinants of health, which are health conditions that populations are born and cycled through as a result of their environment and zip code.2 The project itself is a qualitative study designed understand non-adherence to HPV, abnormal Pap screening and follow-up to abnormal screenings among low-income African American. The study will employ Photovoice methodology that is a participatory action research approach to engage community members by allowing them the opportunity to take pictures of the community in which they belong, engaging in dialogue about the photographs, and using photographs as a platform for change.3 Participants will be trained and invited to a focus group to share their photographs while the team analyzes photos to that are influence relevant factors. The results are anticipated to supplement previously published data to advocate for an adherence intervention.