Diminished Quality of Life among Women affected by Ebola

This article analyzes data collected from Liberian women afflicted by the Ebola virus disease, survivors of the virus and noninfected persons living in Ebola-affected homes. This research is one of the first statistical analyses examining factors diminishing quality of life: negative experiences, stigma, and psychosocial symptoms among females affected by the virus after the outbreak. The research presents a thorough literature review, including research related to other infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, to inform the gap in studies on Ebola’s effects on quality of life. Women who are Ebola virus disease survivors demonstrate significant differences in stigma and psychosocial stress when compared to their female peers. This article attempts to broaden understanding of the conditions and mental health of women affected by Ebola

Unexpected Vibrations in Unexpected Places: Making New, Old Music in the McCarroll Family

This thesis examines the ways that commercially recorded music from the late 1920s and the meanings attached to the recordings by listeners shape contemporary music making in the McCarroll family of East Tennessee. I argue that processes of circulation, resonance, and feedback help explicate some of the changes in the McCarroll family's sound over the last dozen or so years, paying careful attention to the family's shift towards consciously performing their music as heritage. I trace fiddler Jimmy McCarroll and the Roane County Ramblers' 1928 and 1929 Columbia recordings as they have circulated globally among listeners through 78rpm records, anthologies, and reissues, attending to the ways in which releases have resonated with listeners. I conclude by examining the ways that Tom McCarroll and his daughter Tammie McCarroll-Burroughs' music has transformed into heritage tailored for audiences and venues dedicated to traditional music.Master of Art

Catching the “Wild Note”: Listening, Learning, and Connoisseurship in Old-Time Music

As we approach the century mark for audio recording projects that began documenting traditional music forms in the southern U.S., it is worth interrogating the profound ways that old commercial and field recordings shape contemporary performance practices and understandings of these genres, especially as copies of older recordings circulate widely and unexpectedly and accumulate new meanings. This project examines the ways that sound recordings and technologies mediate contemporary performance practices, aesthetics, and social relationships in the context of Old-time music, especially among Old-time practitioners in East Tennessee, a site long associated with the genre. An ethnography of listening, learning, and performance practices among expert Old-time musicians, this dissertation brings conversations about the splitting and circulation of sounds from their sources to bear on long-standing concerns about modes of transmission of traditional and local knowledge. Thinking about the transmission of traditional music as a process thoroughly imbricated with sound technologies yields new questions, stories, and understandings about Old-time music making and the study of expressive culture. This project traces a circulatory flow that runs from Old-time’s emergence as commercial and field recordings into the learning, listening, and performing bodies of contemporary musicians and, then, back into the realm of recorded sound as contemporary experts make new recordings. Based on the author’s experience as a performer/researcher, and on fifteen years of fieldwork with expert musicians around Chattanooga, Tennessee, and beyond, this project reveals the intensely creative processes of emulation that lead to masterful performances on fiddle and banjo, the intimate relationships that form between players and between listener/learners and sound recordings, and emergent forms of connoisseurship. As this project foregrounds and interrogates the role of sound technologies in mediating and sustaining local forms of expressive culture, it invites researchers to consider carefully the entangled relationships between technologies, aesthetics, and masterful performances in contemporary traditional art forms. Rather than dismissing artistic projects that draw on recordings as less authentic than projects built around face-to-face learning, this project invites researchers to recognize the creative labor and social relationships that form as mediated repertories and styles return to embodied performances.Doctor of Philosoph

Playing to Live: Outcome Evaluation of a Community-Based Psychosocial Expressive Arts Program for Children During the Liberian Ebola Epidemic

Background. This paper reviews the efficacy of a community psychosocial arts program focused on building mental health capacity within post-Ebola Liberia. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the outcome effects of two groups using pre- and post-treatment data. We hypothesized that there would be a difference in symptoms pre- and post-treatment, and the longer program would yield more significant results. Methods. There was a total of 870 child participants. Of 40 sites, 24 were selected for a 5-month treatment (TG1) while the remaining 16 sites received 3 months of treatment (TG2). Paired t tests and a mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyse pre- and post-psychological stress symptoms (PSS) for samples from both groups. Results. Separately, treatment group 1 (TG1) and treatment group 2\u27s (TG2) paired t test yielded significant results (p \u3c 0.001) for the decrease of PSS. The mixed-model ANOVA found that there were significant differences in total pre- and post-test PSS and a significant difference in PSS means over time. Conclusions. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant decrease in reported symptoms in both treatment groups pre- to post-intervention and a significant difference in total symptoms over time. However, the findings do not indicate that the longer programming was statistically different compared to the shorter programming. The study presented had gaps in data, largely due to limits in research during the crisis. However, this paper provides a unique case study for challenges that can be faced for project evaluation in emergency settings

A Process Description of Playing to Live! A Community Psychosocial Arts Program During Ebola

From 2014 to 2015, Liberia experienced the largest Ebola epidemic in world history. The impact of this disease was not only physical; it created fear, loss, and trauma throughout the country. This article will describe the process of three phases of a community-based psychosocial expressive arts program, which used theory from the fields of expressive arts therapy to build mental health capacity during and after the epidemic. This article will highlight the background of Ebola virus disease and the Ebola virus disease epidemic, provide an overview of current theory and research for expressive arts therapy and the impact of trauma, describe the process of how the program developed and was implemented, the process of partnering with the community, program components, the two pilot programs, and the large-scale community program. We performed a mixed-methods analysis of the large-scale program’s activity data to evaluate the impact. The results highlight a positive response from the participating children and facilitators. The authors discuss the findings from the results, best practices, and limitations. Additionally, the authors discuss implications and considerations for future programming

Community Health Needs Assessment in Wake County, North Carolina: Partnership of public health, hospitals, academia, and other stakeholders

Hospitals and other health care agencies are required to conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) every 3 years to obtain information about the health needs and concerns of the population. In 2013, to avoid duplication of efforts and to achieve a more comprehensive CHNA, Wake County Human Services, WakeMed Health and Hospitals, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Rex Healthcare, Wake Health Services, United Way of the Greater Triangle, and the North Carolina Institute for Public Health partnered to conduct a joint assessment for Wake County

Reflections on Purpose and Professional Identity Formation

I am very grateful to Professor Daisy Floyd for starting this important conversation about the role of purpose in professional identity formation, and for inviting me to participate in it. As I know my co-panelists agree, this is an important conversation not simply to us as lawyers, but as humans, trying to help each other figure out how to live good, meaningful lives. I think what might be most useful in my response to Professor Floyd is to turn at least initially from the theoretical to the personal and practical by offering some insight into my own experience with purpose in both law school and my career, and then some related observations. In doing so, I hope to both echo and accentuate some of what Professor Floyd has observed, and also to flag a few areas of complexity in this conversation that might be worth our time as we continue to engage with and clarify this topic in the context of legal education and professional identity formation generally