April–September 2020 Pop-Up Grant Recipients

Grantee: Annahita Ball, Assistant Professor, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Students who experience identity-based bullying, racial discrimination, and hate in school report more loneliness, self-harm, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation. This is compounded when students experience bullying or discrimination targeted toward multiple identities. Intergroup dialogues (IGD) are a potential pathway to improving racial climate in schools. This study will use mixed methods to examine data from marginalized youth who participated in school-based IGD to achieve the following aims: (1) explore students’ perceptions of IGD’s impact on their mental health and well-being, and (2) identify mental health and social-emotional outcomes of IGD participation for use in future research.

Grantee: Lauren Brown, NIA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan

While African Americans demonstrate higher levels of chronic stress exposure and subsequent morbidity relative to whites, African Americans also have lower rates of common stress related psychopathology (i.e. anxiety and major depression), a paradox that the health disparities literature has failed to resolve. The purpose of this of this research is: (1) to improve our understanding of the black-white paradox in mental and physical health outcomes using a stress assessment that incorporates both exposure and appraisal, and (2) to develop a new measure of stress for population based surveys that includes the appraisal processes to better understand the distinct stress experience of minority groups, and specifically for aging African Americans.

Grantees: Grantee: Oliver Haimson, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Michigan; Daniel Delmonaco, PhD Student, School of Information, University of Michigan; Gary Harper, Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan; Amber Hughson, CHAI Project Director, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan; Laura Jadwin-Cakmak, Research Director, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan; Elliot Popoff, CHAI Project Director, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, University of Michigan

Stigma, discrimination, and other factors put lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority young people at increased risk for negative health outcomes. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth use the internet as a vital resource for finding health information. Many LGBTQ+ youth do not receive comprehensive and inclusive education in schools and cannot turn to other traditional resources such as adults or friends. In this research project, we conduct interviews, focus groups, and design sessions to investigate information practices of LGBTQ+ youth. We seek to understand how they use online resources to meet their health education information needs, particularly related to three primary areas: mental health, substance use, and sex education. Understanding the online health education information practices of LGBTQ+ youth will inform how to best meet their information needs. This project will support the efforts of the Community Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and contribute to its mission as we collaboratively design a web resource for comprehensive health education information with LGBTQ+ youth.

Grantee: Martinque Jones, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas; Shardé M. Davis, Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut

Black college women present to counseling with culturally distinct concerns, many of which are linked to their internalization of the “Strong Black Woman” schema — a gendered racial archetype characterized by independence, emotional strength, and self-sacrifice. Though the deleterious psychological impact of the SBW schema is well-documented, few have explored the variables that may mitigate its effect. Accordingly, the proposed project uses experimental and qualitative methods to explore the utility of a group psychotherapy intervention (“Invincible Black Women” — Jones & Pritchett-Johnson, 2018) in influencing variables (e.g., social support) shown to buffer the impact of the SBW schema on Black women's wellness.

Grantee: Seanna Leath, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia; Martinque Jones, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas

Black students contend with culturally specific concerns (e.g.,-ism’s, discrimination, and marginalization), which can undermine their mental health and academic performance. Despite their need, Black students are hesitant to seek mental health services for various reasons (e.g., mental health stigma). However, few studies have investigated how institutional climate explains Black student’s service utilization and subsequent wellness, namely mental health and academic engagement. The proposed project will utilize secondary data from the Healthy Minds Study (a multi-institutional initiative), and qualitative data from 40 Black students attending two culturally distinct universities to explore connections between institutional climate, mental health service utilization, and wellness.

Grantee: Carmen McCallum, Assistant Professor, Eastern Michigan University; Allison Boone, Graduate Student, Eastern Michigan University; Susanna Long, Graduate Student, Eastern Michigan University; Gloryvee Fonseca-Borlin, Program Manager & Women of Color in the Academy Project Coordinator at the University of Michigan

This project will extend an existing mixed-method study by examining the experiences of doctoral students with mental health challenges. Previously, semi-structured interviews were utilized to interview 14 PhD students in the social sciences to understand how graduate school experiences negatively impact student mental health. This work identified five underlying causes of poor mental health outcomes: (1) normalizing stress, depression and anxiety as part of graduate school culture, (2) lack of guidance in choosing a career path, (3) negotiating work/life balance, (4) experiencing negative interpersonal and professional development experiences and (5) internalizing stigmatization associated with mental health. The majority of students in the sample were cisgender and White. We would like to continue this research and diversify our sample in order to gain a better understanding of the impact of mental health challenges on students of color and those with marginalized identities.

Grantee: Ryan Miller, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Bryan Stare, Assistant Professor of Counseling, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Richmond D. Wynn, Counseling Center Director and Associate Professor of Mental Health Counseling, University of North Florida

The existing literature on LGBTQ+ students with disabilities paints a portrait of risk for poor mental and physical health outcomes, yet emerging research is also exploring well-being and more asset-based perspectives on how students manage their identities and find community. This project would contribute an addition to our understanding of mental health among LGBTQ+ college students with disabilities and the dissemination plan would allow these findings to reach higher education practitioners and the broader public as well as scholars. The major aim of this project is to explore and document how LGBTQ+ college students with disabilities describe their mental health and the strategies they use to cope with stressors, develop resilience, and build community. To accomplish this aim, we will utilize existing data collected from a larger study of LGBTQ+ students with disabilities. The constructivist grounded theory study (Charmaz, 2006) included semi-structured, intensive one-on-one interview with 31 LGBTQ+ students with disabilities enrolled at two predominantly white universities in the Southern United States. Among the 31 participants, 20 identified specifically with psychological/psychiatric disabilities such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and bipolar disorder; however, all participants were asked to describe their mental health, stressors, and resilience and community building strategies.

Grantee: Hajar Yazdiha, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California; Courtney Boen, University of Pennsylvania

Studies document the racialized spillover effects of police violence on the population, but questions about the emotional and stress-related mechanisms underlying these effects remain unclear. Using computational methods, this project evaluates the spillover effects of police violence using longitudinal data, a quasi-natural experiment design, and two cases. In particular, this project addresses two research questions: 1) What are the emotional, psychological, and stress-related spillover effects of police violence? 2) Are these effects stratified by race, gender, age, and/or place? Findings from this study will improve scientific understanding of the role of public events in shaping broader patterns of racial inequality.

Grantee: Xing Zhang, Health Disparities Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Annaliese Grant, PhD Student in Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This project uses longitudinal social survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and the Add Health Parent Study from 1994-2018 in order to understand how depressive symptoms change over time from adolescence to adulthood, how transitions to adulthood are associated with mental health, and how parent-child relationships are associated with mental health outcomes among Black, Latinx, and Asian adults. Variations in these three objectives will be explored by immigrant generation status, gender, and socioeconomic status. The goal of this study is to understand how parent-child relationships can improve mental health in the transition to adulthood among young adults of color.