Current Projects
The SOUL Study – The Study of Unions and Love in Racialized Contexts
Creating and maintaining positive and healthy romantic relationships is a critical component of overall health and well-being. Critical gaps remain about how racism, a multidimensional determinant of health, is an upstream risk factor of poor relationship health among African American couples. Despite these risks, there is also considerable heterogeneity in relationship experiences whereby all African American couples are not at risk of poor relationship health outcomes, warranting an examination of strengths and protective factors. To address these gaps, this project examines the culturally-relevant risk and protective factors of relationship health for African American couples.
Champaign County Black Community Profile
The prevailing narrative surrounding Black individuals and communities is often deficit-centered. This is problematic as there are considerable strengths that go unacknowledged and underappreciated. By recognizing and amplifying the strengths of Black individuals, families, and communities, we can reinforce a positive self-image and promote a sense of agency, to promote racial healing within the Black community and beyond. This project aims to develop a comprehensive description of the strengths, characteristics, and resources of Black residents in Champaign County. The first phase of this project is a Community Strengths Assessment that includes synthesizing published and unpublished documents, records, and media (e.g., meeting minutes, reports, manuscripts, news, websites, brochures) that centers Black communities. The second phase is an intergenerational Oral History Project where high school students interview and collect oral histories from prominent Black leaders in Champaign County.
Ethnic-Racial Dynamics in Black Families
Although there continues to be examinations of race-related risk and resilience factors among Black youths and adults, gaps remain in our understanding of how these factors interdependently operate among Black parents and their children. Most of the work in this area has gathered the perspectives of either the youth or the adult without considering the transactional nature of their experiences (Hughes et al., 2016). The current project uses data from a sample of 200 Black adolescents and their parents to (1) examine the associations between ethnic-racial dynamics among Black parent-child dyads, (2) assess the effects of ethnic-racial dynamics on their own and each other’s well-being, and (3) explore the influence of general family processes (e.g., relationship quality) and resources (e.g., social support and coping strategies) on the links between ethnic-racial dynamics and well-being.
Previous Projects
A Diary Approach to Understanding Adolescents’ Everyday Experiences
Parental involvement significantly contributes to how their children cope with interpersonal stress, particularly in daily interactions at school or in the neighborhood. Using the daily diary approach to study families from diverse backgrounds, we explored day-to-day parent-adolescent interactions and adolescents’ management of interpersonal stress.
Ambitions and Stories of Young People Inspiring Resilience and Engagement (A.S.P.I.R.E)
The objectives of the ASPIRE program were to facilitate Black youth’s exploration of their strengths and resilience, foster socio-cultural connectedness, and encourage youth to imagine a future filled with unlimited possibilities. The ASPIRE program incorporated storytelling activities (e.g., vision-boarding, identity wheel) that encouraged youth educational aspirations and a sense of belonging into the curricula of an existing youth program in the Champaign-Urbana area. This project engaged and illuminated the voices and experiences of middle school Black boys and girls, creating a youth–centered space of healing and hope.
Community Healing and Resistance through Storytelling (C-HeARTS) Project
Healing on a community level has the potential to promote resilience and foster relationships that can help sustain healing. A group of interdisciplinary scholars and community members, whose focus centers on the well-being of African Americans, explored the concept of community healing through storytelling across various African American community groups within the Champaign-Urbana area. The goals of this project were to 1) build sustainable partnerships with community members, scholars, and professionals interested in African American community healing; 2) develop a model/framework of community healing through storytelling; and 3) create and capture the perceptions and process of community healing through digital storytelling.
Student Experiences with Race-Related Content in Social Media Project
We examined students’ experiences with race-related content in social media and their effects on subsequent mental health outcomes (i.e., psychological distress, depressive and anxiety symptoms) and communicative behavior (e.g., interpersonal discussion with family and friends, help-seeking), including civic engagement – among a diverse group of college students. Specifically, this mixed methods project aimed to utilize focus groups, survey approaches, and experimental methods to explore the role of communication in coping strategies when media (particularly social media) content portrays racial injustices and elicits vicarious racism experiences.
Exploring Variations of the Racial Discrimination and Mental Health Association in the Parent-Child Context
Stressors, such as racial discrimination, can become a shared experience for those within a family and put others at risk of negative health outcomes even when they do not directly experience the stressor. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we explored the intra- and interpersonal effects of racial discrimination on mental health among African American adolescents and their primary caregivers. We also aimed to understand how these associations vary based on gender, socioeconomic status, and perceptions of family support.
Barriers and Facilitators to Mental Health Help-Seeking among African American Youth and their Families: A Systematic Review Study
African American youth are disproportionately exposed to social stressors such as racial discrimination that are linked to deleterious mental health outcomes; yet, they are significantly less likely to utilize mental health services and more likely to prematurely leave when they do enter treatment compared to their Caucasian peers. Negative beliefs about mental health services stemming from cultural mistrust between clients and providers and mental health stigma have been shown to be associated with such mental health treatment disparities. We systematically reviewed the literature to identify the barriers and facilitators influencing mental health help-seeking behaviors and outpatient service use among this population to better understand what motivates and discourages formal mental health service use.