Exploring Stress and Coping Among Urban African American Adolescents: The Shifting the Lens Study

INTRODUCTION: Stress can have a significant effect on an adolescent's long-term physical and mental well-being. An understanding of the role of unmanaged stress during early adolescence is critical for the prevention of chronic diseases such as depression. The purpose of the Shifting the Lens study was to explore perceptions of stress, sources of social support, and use of coping strategies among urban African American ninth graders. METHODS: A youth-driven, mixed-method approach was used to assess teens' perceptions of stress. During the 2001–2002 school year, teen participants (N = 26) from East Baltimore, Md, completed questionnaires, audio journals, pile-sort activities, and personal social support network maps. RESULTS: In contrast with existing literature that emphasizes the influence of violence and neighborhood factors on stress among teens, teens prioritized other sources of stress, particularly from school, friends, and family. For support, they relied on different individuals, depending on the source of the stress — friends for romantic relationship stress and family for job, school, and family stress. Sex differences in the coping styles of the participating teens were found. Girls reported more frequent use of support-seeking and active coping strategies than boys. CONCLUSION: The use of multiple data collection strategies to explore stress uniquely contributes to our understanding of how one group of teens perceives and copes with stress. Future research should explore stress from the youth perspective in communities that are similar to East Baltimore, Md. In addition, programmatic recommendations include the need for sex-specific stress management activities and education about youth stress for adults. Community participatory translation interventions based on study findings, such as a youth-produced video and a resource guide for youth service providers, were implemented

“Learning How to See”: Faculty Members’ Use of Unnamed Contemplative Practices

As contemplative pedagogy on higher education campuses grows, so does interest in supporting additional faculty in using contemplative practices. At our small, liberal arts teaching university in the southeast USA, our faculty contemplative learning circle has steadily widened and worked to integrate mindfulness and other practices into our campus activities. We became interested in how contemplative practices are already happening in our classrooms without being named as such, and if finding out about them might elucidate opportunities to support faculty in deepening and expanding current efforts. This paper presents the findings from an interview study with 35 faculty members not formally participating in faculty activities involving contemplative pedagogy. Faculty spontaneously mentioned some activities that may be considered contemplative in their descriptions of effective teaching strategies, such as class discussions, experiential activities, and journaling. Among a provided list of contemplative activities, the most frequently used were discussions/debates, journaling/reflective writing, and beholding, though the ways in which faculty implemented the activities varied. Faculty offered many examples of activities that could be considered contemplative or introspective, and the ways they used the activities differed by discipline. When asked directly, 18 participants reported that they used contemplative practices or pedagogy in some way, nine reported that they were uncertain about the definition and/ or whether they used them, and eight responded that they do not use them. Many faculty members also indicated interest in learning more about how to incorporate contemplative practices in teaching, suggesting an opportunity for enhanced faculty development efforts

Utilizing Contemplative Practices With Undergraduate Students in a Community-Engaged Course on Health Disparities

Public health courses that provide opportunities for applied learning to develop students’ understanding of health disparities and methods for achieving health equity are of critical importance. Contemplative pedagogy can cultivate among students personal skills such as open awareness, introspection, nonjudgment, and compassion as students engage with communities across class, race, and other lines of difference. This article describes how contemplative practices are introduced and aligned with learning objectives in an undergraduate community-engaged course on health parity at a public liberal arts university in North Carolina, with the intent of contributing to the growing literature on contemplative education and how it may be appropriate in public health education. Contemplative pedagogy in this course offers opportunities for students to learn with their minds, bodies, and hearts. This article presents course context and structure, introducing contemplative practices to students, and two specific examples of contemplative activities that may help students better understand diversity and their role in sustainable health equity. The article concludes with a discussion and resources for instructors interested in contemplative pedagogy. As contemplative pedagogy gains ground in college instruction, it may also provide critical skill-building for students of public health.https://doi.org/10.1177/237337991769799

Partnering on the PRAISE Program: Putting Health Equity into Practice

Purpose: The purpose of Preventive Health Education Resulting in Action Inspiring Success for Everyone (PRAISE) was to develop a community-driven program to encourage and support churches in sustainable health promotion and assessment efforts to improve African Americans' health knowledge and behaviors in Asheville, North Carolina. Methods: The PRAISE program provided technical support toward gaining recognition and an award for health promotion activities to 10 churches in year 1 and 5 additional churches in year 2. The Results-Based Accountability© (RBA) framework involved documentation of church health promotion activities and surveys of a convenience sample of congregants at nine churches before (presurvey, n=270) and after (postsurvey, n=241) the intervention. Differences in frequency of conduct of and participation in church health promotion activities and in congregant health knowledge and behaviors were assessed in 2015 and 2016. Results: Fourteen of the churches engaged in at least one health promotion activity and more than half offered healthier foods at gatherings, offered exercise opportunities, and held at least three health education activities. Seventy-two percent of congregants reported participating in at least one church health activity at postsurvey compared with 58% at presurvey. The proportion of congregants who had personal health knowledge and the proportion that rated their health as good or better were higher at postsurvey. Conclusion: Building on years of trust and collaboration among churches, local community organizations, and an academic partner, PRAISE in its first 2 years suggests that a community-driven approach can support health promotion and healthy behaviors, advancing health equity efforts

Festival of Dionysus in the Mountain South: Melding Local and Ancient Foodways

In Winter 2017, an interdisciplinary faculty team hosted the 4th Festival of Dionysus in the Mountain South at UNC Asheville featuring a feast for the commons prepared by students from a course on Ancient Foodways. Festival feasts in ancient Greece would have used nearly all local or regional ingredients - fresh foods available seasonally and those that could be stored. (Beer, 2010) In designing the menu, students had to navigate using a list of ingredients available locally in December, ancient (or traditional) Greek dishes, cost, modern palates and individual food preferences, while keeping true to an ancient, simple but celebratory, menu that could be made for, and enjoyed by, the masses. The resultant menu included traditional Kalitsounia - Cretan Spinach Pies and adapted Kalitsounia – Southern Sweet Potato Pies, as well as ancient Homeric olive relish. (Dalby & Grainger, 1996) In an effort to assess the festival’s impact on participants’ interest and knowledge of ancient Greek food and culture, student researchers collected participant emails (n = 136) and emailed them a survey addressing their interest in local food, food preparation, and ancient Greek culture and cuisine. Survey respondents (n = 41) indicated that as a result of their participation, they would be very likely to want to learn about the history of food cultures (41%), and nearly all respondents (98%) indicated that they would be somewhat or very likely to attend similar events in the future. The impact of experiential learning through planning and cooking was explored using reflection papers