Is Health Class Important for the Community?

by Mariah Bourne, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Image Credit: 

https://chelseaw4life09.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/public_health.jpg?w=300&h=212

It has always been a goal of mine to become a high school health teacher. However, once I began working in the school system, I learned that my goal might be harder to attain than I realized. Recently, I was having a conversation with another teacher at a school where I work as a substitute. After answering the obligatory "chit-chat" questions (e.g. "How long have you been substitute teaching?," "Where do you go to college?", etc.) she asked about my professional aspirations. When I told her that I wanted to be a health teacher, I was met with a very quizzical look. I was surprised by her response because, until then, I had never thought of being a health teacher as an uncommon calling. What she said next stuck with me. "Health is a dying field," she said. 

I didn't pay her comment much attention until I started hearing similar statements from other teachers. Then, I really started to wonder: What does this mean for the future of young adults (and my own professional goals)?!? It just made no sense to me that a class that was meant for educating future adults on the importance of making healthy decisions was no longer viewed as being important. 

Restoring the reputation of health class is tricky; many don't see it as having the same relevance of more traditional subjects like English or math. However, I think that health class is one of the most important classes offered in grade schools. As Kelly's principle of succession (as cited in Scott & Wolfe, 2015) reminds us, the students in health classes today will grow up to become the community leaders of tomorrow. It makes good sense to educate and help empower children to make healthy lifestyle choices so they can be positive role models and contribute to building healthy communities.

Community psychologists can help repair the reputation of health classes by sharing the importance of prevention and strengths-based approaches to health and wellness. In addition, community psychologists can assist schools in developing and conducting needs and resource assessments to ensure that students are receiving health education that is tailored to their school and community contexts. Delivering health content that has clear connections to the lived experience of students will help generate excitement for new health classes curriculum that being taught the most recent and effective information. The potential benefits from a socio-culturally relevant health class could be life changing for students and have a lasting community impact. Let's reboot health class!

#commpsych

#healthrocks

Mariah Bourne is a graduate student in the Community Social Psychology program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is currently enrolled in Dr. Christopher Allen's Introduction to Community Social Psychology course.

References

Scott, V.C. & Wolfe, S.M. (2015). Community Psychology: Foundations for Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Lets Talk About Sex...Education

Young people are having sex. Now, this may not come as news to most people in 2011, but many still ignore this concept when it comes to discussing it with youth. And who can blame them? It can be tough to talk about sex and sexuality with a teen or young adult. For some people it may feel dirty, wrong, uncomfortable, or unnecessary; I’m writing to state that in terms of community well-being, it is beyond necessary. So let’s talk “dirty” for a moment.

You might ask, “How does this relate to Community Psychology?” To which I say, “It does. Hold tight.”

Community Psychology as a discipline, from my perspective, is an amalgamation of several wonderful concepts and values. There are key focuses on social justice, empowerment and participation, respect for diversity, and—of particular relevance—individual and community wellness. So when I hear or read statistics that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is one the highest in the developed world (and is more than double the rate in Canada and other parts of Europe), I start to wonder what has gone wrong. Then I think, “How is this affecting our communities?”

To be clear, we are talking about the number of unintended pregnancies—which is also directly associated to the high number of school drop-out rates. When you consider the reason for high rates of unintended pregnancy, high school drop-outs, and the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), you need to consider access to education and resources. It is no coincidence that access to education and resources is directly related all of these things. It is even less of a coincidence that the higher the rate of pregnancy, drop-outs, STIs (including HIV) and drug use, the lower the income of the community.

In a 2009 study done in the New York City school systems, teens made up more than one in every four diagnosed cases of STIs. (It comes as no surprise that New York City also has a much greater number of unintended pregnancies than that of the entire nation). In 2004, a study found that over 75 percent of the New York City school systems did not meet even the most basic requirements for health education, let alone sexual health educationⁱ. This deficit, without a doubt, is a community problem. If we are going to make individual and community health and wellness a priority, we must find ways to spread the knowledge of sexual health care, prevention and contraception to our communities.

If the numbers alone don’t paint a detailed enough picture, consider this fact:

In the past fifteen years, our government has spent over 1.5 billion federal dollarsⁱⁱ on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, all of which fail to teach the details of safe, preventive behavior. This abstinence-only policy has deprived students of information on the prevention of STIs, sexuality and sexual orientation, and options or access to contraception. Moreover, abstinence-only programs deny access to proper health care information for youth who have been sexually abused, have previously engaged in sexual behavior, or identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender).

People need information. Over the past few years, efforts to mandate universal sexual health education have become more of a priority in some of the nation’s major cities. New York is one of the latest to pass a policy for consistent, universal sex education curriculaⁱⁱⁱ. I question how and what we can do for the smaller cities, towns, and rural neighborhoods—not to mention the states that fight these policies. Within our communities, how can we spread information on sexual health education, prevention, and safety? For a start, we can talk to our legislators and push for policy changes, utilizing the examples of other cities as models for our own actions.

Perhaps most importantly, we need to have more discussion of sex, prevention, options, and resources. Parents, grandparents, friends, siblings, aunts and uncles, teachers, mentors: It is our obligation to spread the word about safety and good health. Ready…. GO!

Note: There are many online sites for suggested tips on how to talk to youth about sex, sexuality, and tough stuff alike. This is one.

Danielle Gemmell, M.A.

Planned Parenthood of New Jersey

i http://www.truth-out.org/new-yorks-sex-ed-mandate-radical-notion-our-kids-might-learn-facts/1319993861

ii http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=1271

iii http://www.nyc41percent.com/sex_ed_report.pdf

Community Psychologist Practitioner Spotlight: Pamela Imm

“I frequently tell people that I have the best job in the world.  It is fun and provides interesting work that is rewarding on a lot of levels.  I enjoy telling people what I do for work although I find that I never answer that question in the same way.”

Name: Pamela Imm, Ph.D.
Title: Community Psychologist
Employer: Self Employed; has office at LRADAC
Affiliations:  American Evaluation Association, Society for Community Research and Action

Using Community Psychology to Help Communities Find Effective Solutions

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Dr. Pamela Imm is a community psychologist practitioner who uses her skills in evaluation to help communities find solutions to large scale community issues.

She is affiliated with the Lexington/Richland Alcohol and Drug Abuse Council (LRADAC), a non-profit agency that provides prevention, intervention and treatment programs to South Carolina citizens. Through this agency, she works as an evaluator with four different community coalitions to help prevent risky behaviors among youth. Her role as an evaluator involves providing strategic direction and assessing the effectiveness of community-based programs. Dr. Imm is also self-employed and works with other coalitions around the country that address violence prevention, underage drinking and youth development and leadership programs. She is a big advocate of doing what works. She serves as a consultant and presents specific evidence-based strategies and programs for community groups and coalitions to consider.

Dr. Imm also conducts research and publishes with her colleagues. These publications include Using the Getting to Outcomes Approach to Help Communities Prevent Underage Drinking (2007) and The Premises is the Premise: Understanding Off-and-On Premises Alcohol Sales Outlets to Improve Environmental Alcohol Prevention Strategies (2011). She and her colleagues received the 2008 American Evaluation Association Award for Outstanding Publication for Getting to Outcomes: Methods and Tools for Self-Assessment and Accountability. A number of health agencies around the nation have adopted this model.

She has a strong interest in integrating research into practice. Her work is disseminated into the community and is available for organizations to use. She is also involved in providing training and technical assistance and continues to study best practices and strategies in providing technical assistance in community settings.

Dr. Imm possesses the necessary skills to work in a variety of settings as an evaluator, a consultant, a researcher and a grant writer. An understanding of how to apply key concepts in psychology (especially community psychology), is an important skill that Dr. Imm has gained through her graduate training and years of experience. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical-community psychology at the University of South Carolina. During graduate school, she gained community psychology practice experience by working on neighborhood projects with her mentors and research lab. The interdisciplinary nature of her graduate training provided mentors across disciplines such as public health. She also gained skills in developing and implementing applied practices that were contextually appropriate and empirically grounded.

As a community psychologist practitioner, Dr. Imm serves in various professional capacities that help to ensure strong, healthy communities. Her commitment to making a positive impact on both a local and national level is demonstrated by the practice of informing the community about what strategies work and how to implement them.


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This profile was written by Kyrah Brown, from Wichita State University.  It is part of a series of community psychology practitioner profiles.  If you have a suggestion for future profiles, please email scraprofiles@gmail.com

Community Practitioner Spotlight: Adrienne Paine- Andrews

“The most critical skills [that I’ve gained] were..ensuring citizen involvement in identifying local issues and solutions and working together to implement them.”-Dr. Paine-Andrews

Name: Adrienne Paine-Andrews, Ph.D.
Title: Community Psychologist/Consultant
Employer: Self-Employed
Affiliations: Kansas Public Health Association, the Society for Public Health Education, the American Public Health Association, and the Society for Community Research and Action

Dr. Adrienne Paine-Andrews is a community psychology practitioner whose work involves promoting community health and development through systems level approaches.

She works primarily with health related foundations assisting with grant review processes, program planning, project management and organizational capacity building. Currently, her work focuses on promoting environmental and systems approaches to promote healthy eating and active living; and providing opportunities for organizational capacity building.

She earned her Ph.D. in Community Psychology from the University of Kansas. During her graduate training, emphasis was placed on understanding the importance of systems level approaches and citizen participation in community and organizational settings. Through her experience with the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development, she applied community psychology theories to community settings. These experiences ultimately provided a foundation for her current work.

Dr. Paine-Andrews’ background in community psychology theory and practice has helped guide her work. It has enabled her to help communities identify and implement effective solutions for improving health.  

Keywords: Community Health and Development, Consultation, 

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This profile was written by Kyrah Brown, from Wichita State University.  It is part of a series of community psychology practitioner profiles.  If you have a suggestion for future profiles, please email ComPsychPractice@gmail.com 

Community Psychology and Health: Battling the Global AIDS Epidemic

On the heels of an exciting announcement of a breakthrough in the battle against AIDS, it’s important to consider the social and community-level influences that will be at play once the controlled conditions of scientific trials have faded away. AIDS is a community-level phenomenon. Though it is individuals who pass HIV to their partners, the degree to which any person’s behavior puts them at risk for contracting HIV is in part attributable to the amount of virus in all HIV-positive people in a community, or “community viral load” . Community and cultural influences play a large part in whether practices will be adopted, so it is significant that this breakthrough was found in a multi-nation study in natural settings. However, what this study did not take account is what may be the biggest barrier to global benefit from this breakthrough: economic inequality.



Since highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) became available for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, mortality rates from this disease have decreased dramatically. However, these benefits have not been distributed evenly. For instance, in Hawai‘i where I live, diagnoses of AIDS have been decreasing over the last decade, and AIDS-related deaths decreased sharply in 1996 and the years immediately following it, coinciding with the widespread use of HAART. However, the decreases in AIDS-related mortality have not affected all groups similarly. Prior to 1996, the proportion of deaths due to AIDS for different groups were similar to the proportion of people living with AIDS. After 1996 this changed, with Caucasians comprising a relatively smaller proportion, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders comprising a much larger proportion of those dying of AIDS in the 5 years after the introduction of HAART compared with both their previous mortality rates and the proportion of those living with AIDS. This may be due to a number of factors, but economic disparities surely play a role, as the treatments for HIV/AIDS can be extremely expensive.

Across the globe, there has been debate about whether and to what extent countries and organizations should provide funds for HIV/AIDS treatment. Some of the debate is in regard to whether prevention or treatment should be prioritized. Fortunately, this breakthrough diminishes this dilemma, as it involves using “treatment as prevention.” Those same antiretrovirals that help treat those with the disease decrease the viral load and make it less likely that a person infected with HIV will pass on the virus. This has long been suspected, but this trial is the first large-scale study to truly investigate whether the timing of antiretroviral treatment affects transmission. HIV-positive persons with HIV-negative partners were assigned to either begin receiving antiretroviral treatment right away or to wait until their disease had progressed further. Those who began taking antiretroviral drugs right away were 96.3% less likely to pass it on to their partner. In addition to reducing transmission, early retroviral therapy improved outcomes for the HIV positive partner. As scientific advances transform the AIDS epidemic, issues of social justice increasingly come to the forefront, as treatment continues to be more available to the economically advantaged. As community psychologists, we can work to ensure that these issues are discussed, and to remind people that decreasing community viral load means decreasing risk for all people.

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Post By
Gina Cardazone, University of Hawai`i, Mānoa

Community Practitioner Spotlight: Eric P. Green

Name: Eric P. Green, Ph.D.
Titles: Research Associate and Adjunct Assistant Professor
Employers: The Population Council and New York University
Affiliations: Innovations for Poverty Action, Research Network
Website: www.ericpgreen.com

Promoting Global Health through Practice, Research and Technology

Dr. Eric P Green is a community psychology practitioner whose work is positively impacting the lives of people across the world. His training in community psychology has played a vital role in his current work. His work is illustrative of community action guided by community psychology principles, including the respect for human diversity, social justice, and individual and community wellness.

As an Associate in the Population Council’s Poverty, Gender and Youth Program, Dr. Green is leading a project called Demographic Data for Development. His work involves data sharing and use in three African countries. He and his colleagues are collaborating with in-country partners to help journalists to access and use data in their reporting on health and developmental issues. For example, this project focused on policymakers and their reports of the current data being used and the data they want but do not receive to develop and improve certain policies.

The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernment organization that aims to improve the well-being and the reproductive health of people around the world. The Council also seeks to help achieve “a humane, equitable and sustainable balance between people and resources.”  In addressing their mission, the Population Council conducts research on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, and poverty, gender and youth to improve policies, programs and products in over forty countries.

Dr. Green is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Global Public Health in the Public Health Master’s Program at New York University. He teaches students about the use of technology in computers and communication in global health, and the perspectives and policy challenges that influence action in global public health.

The nature of Dr. Green’s work at the Population Council requires a number of skills in research, communication, technology, critical thinking and so on. For Dr. Green, graduate training has played a vital role in his current work. He earned his Master’s of Arts in International Studies and his Doctorate in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina.

 

According to Dr. Green, the Clinical-Community Psychology program was a great fit for him. He gained a solid foundation in prevention, program evaluation and developed skills using GIS – a tool he continues to use in his job.  He also utilizes mixed-method research strategies and acknowledges the importance of ecologically oriented and culturally-anchored approaches to interventions for communities.  

While in graduate school, Dr. Green worked with a regional food bank through his community practicum. Through this experience he was able to understand how non-profits work and how research and programming coexist. He also spent eight months in northern Uganda conducting fieldwork for his dissertation. These experiences were certainly helpful in preparing him for his current work, which involves collaborating with both regional and international groups. 

The confluence of his training in community psychology, application of innovative technology and commitment to improving global health has helped make a positive impact in communities around the world.

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This profile was written by Kyrah Brown, from Wichita State University.  It is part of a series of community psychology practitioner profiles.  If you have a suggestion for future profiles, please email ComPsychPractice@gmail.com