Students, staff and faculty from across the various University of South Florida and USF Health colleges gathered at the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) for the USF Health 6th Annual Interprofessional Education Day. 

In the wake of a global pandemic, burnout and a variety of other mental health problems are contributing factors to hospitals being understaffed. This year’s theme “Caring for Caregivers: Fostering Mental Health and Wellness in Interprofessional Teams” focused on solutions to help combat those issues and improve the quality of patient care across the profession.   

“Our USF IPE Day working group felt it was critical to focus on this topic given the current challenges that our health care system is facing with health care professionals leaving their professions, increased provider burnout and high rates of mental health issues, including depression and suicide,” said Haru Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, executive director of CAMLS and associate vice president of the USF Health Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice.

Approximately 700 people (500 virtually, 200 in person) attended the morning presentations by industry experts.  Jennifer Bickel, MD, FAAN, FAHS, chief wellness officer at Moffitt Cancer Center and professor of oncologic sciences in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, was the first featured speaker of the morning. Her presentation “Organizational Wellness: Expanding the Horizon of Well-being” highlighted key statistical data on the volume of patients seen by a provider experiencing burnout and steps the National Academy of Medicine is taking to increase wellness across the workforce.  

Richard Westphal, PhD, RN, FAAN, PMHCNS/NP-BC, followed Dr. Bickel.  Dr. Westphal is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Nursing and co-director of the Wisdom and Wellbeing Program at UVA Health.  His presentation “Stress First Aid: Nurturing Resilience in Health Care Professionals” focused on sources of mental stress, how the mind reacts to the stress and team-based solutions centered around well-being. 

Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, MCCM, a nurse scientist at the University of California-San Diego, was the final featured speaker of the morning. Her presentation “Saving Lives: Suicide Prevention and Health Care Interventions” focused on the suicide rates of health care professionals, re-imagining some of the available interventional tools and changing the mental health-related questions on licensing boards. 
 
The morning sessions ended after Donna Petersen, ScD, MHS, CPH, dean of the USF Health College of Public Health, senior associate vice president of USF Health and chief health officer of USF, led an interprofessional panel discussion themed “Unlocking Wellness: Exploring a Toolkit for Inner Balance and Resilience.”  Panelists gave their perspectives on the importance of health care professionals working with a healthy work-life balance and how a better work-life balance will lead to better work environments and more positive patient outcomes. 
 
Panelists: 
–        Kelly Allegro, PT, DPT, board-certified clinical specialist in neurologic physical therapy, co-director of clinical education at the USF Health School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences
–        Kristin Kosyluk, PhD, assistant professor of Mental Health Law and Policy in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, director of the STigma Action Research (STAR) Lab
–        Abraham A. Salinas-Miranda, MD, PhD, MACE, CDVS, assistant professor, director of the Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence, associate director of the USF Health College of Public Health Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Education Science and Practice
–        Chris Simmons, PhD, LCSW, associate director and associate professor, USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences School of Social Work

Anthony Masys, CD, PhD, associate professor at the USF Health College of Public Health.

Kicking off the afternoon was Anthony Masys, CD, PhD, associate professor at the USF Health College of Public Health and an international expert in applied systems thinking, design thinking and futures thinking. He gave his presentation titled “Strength-Based Approach: Appreciative Inquiry.” Appreciative inquiry is more commonly known as a strength-based approach to systems change as it emphasizes generating positive ideas instead of identifying negative problems.  

Part of the appreciative inquiry model is using rich pictures to help diagram a way of relating personal experiences and perceptions to situations by linking a series of concepts.  
 
Dr. Masys’ presentation provided the foundation of the group activity and team competition for the event. 

Students split into interprofessional teams of nine to put the concept of appreciative inquiry into practice. Students shared good and bad examples of well-being in their workspaces and colleges and offered solutions on how to enhance the good examples and improve the bad examples.  
 
With the guidance of their faculty preceptors, teams used rich pictures to generate mind maps that illustrated how they plan to improve the overall provider well-being of an organization. Using a “Shark Tank” format, the teams presented their concepts to the sharks in hopes they will buy their concept. 

Sharks (judges):
–        Karen Aul, PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE, USF Health College of Nursing
–        Jennifer Bickel, MD, FAAN, FAHS, Moffitt Cancer Center
–        Somer Burke, EdD, MPH, CPH, USF Health College of Public Health
–        Joe Ford, JD, USF Health Shared Student Services
–        Vickie Lynn, PhD, MSW, MPH, USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
 
The IPE Day group activity was designed to encourage interprofessional collaboration among learners through hands-on activity. Teams worked together to conceptualize a strategic vision for how wellness can be operationalized to support organizational and personal wellness. The goals of the activity were to:
–        Understand the application of appreciative inquiry as a strength-based approach to navigating various solutions in the health care domain.
–        Apply a system-thinking approach via rich pictures to support ideation in exploring the problem space from an interdisciplinary perspective.
–        Translate insights from the rich pictures into a mind map to develop a strategic implementation strategy supporting wellness. 
 
One by one, teams presented their concept to the sharks. Teams had three minutes to make compelling arguments about why their concept is the best. 

The sharks narrowed down the field to three teams who then had to prepare a one-minute elevator pitch of their concept to give to the audience. Audience members voted for the winner electronically at the end of the pitches. When the votes were counted, Team Five emerged as the winner. The team’s approach focused on a solution that centered around employees finding balance within their work environment. 

Winning team:
Erini Serag-Bolos, PharmD, associate professor at the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy (Preceptor)
Camilla Cardona, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Physician Assistant Program
Hayden Euper, USF Health School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences
Christopher Guskie, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
Rebekah Minter, USF Health Athletic Training Program
Madison Moua, USF Health College of Public Health
Paul Munoz, School of Social Work, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
Amiah Price, USF Health College of Nursing
Jenna Sabbagh, USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy

The names of the winning team will the engraved on the IPE Day trophy.  As the team preceptor, Dr. Serag-Bolos will keep the trophy in her office until the USF Health 7th Annual IPE Day. 

Story reposted from USF Health

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LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their same-age heterosexual or cisgender peers, and experts say it’s not their sexual orientation or gender identity that ups their suicide risk but the isolation and stigma they feel because of discrimination against it.

Kelli Agrawal, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) PhD student, decided to look at a form of resilience known as communicative resilience and its ability to curb suicides among LGBTQ+ communities. Her research, “Assessing Communicative Resilience in Suicide Prevention for LGBTQ+ Communities: A Qualitative Analysis of Community Conversations,” was published in July in the American Journal of Health Promotion. Co-authors include the COPH’s Drs. Joe Bohn, Abraham Salinas-Miranda and others.

Communicative resilience relies on discourse and interaction to enable and promote resilience.

“It occurs when day-to-day communication enables people to adapt or transform through difficult times,” Agrawal said. “It doesn’t just happen in response to difficult times though, it is something we can experience in our day-to-day lives that can benefit us when we inevitably experience disruptions, challenges or crises.”

Agrawal, who has helped facilitate a COPH-initiated suicide prevention program called Growing Hope, said the idea to look at communicative resilience and its role in suicide prevention among the LGBTQ+ population was almost accidental.

“Upon initially reviewing the transcripts from community conversations [defined by Agrawal as problem-solving discourse among those interested in addressing a challenge in their community], I began to recognize processes of communication resilience described in the participants’ responses,” Agrawal noted. “At the time, the Growing Hope project had only facilitated one town hall on suicide prevention, and it was for the LGBTQ+ communities in Pinellas County. We had originally planned to only utilize open coding for the analysis, but the processes were identified so clearly (and repeatedly) that we decided to explore them further.”

Agrawal and her co-authors found that communicative resilience—which included identifying strengths, sharing stories of healing and offering strategies for hope—can be an effective suicide-prevention resource.

And while using communicative resilience in suicide prevention is under-utilized and under-studied, Agrawal hopes that will change.

“Public health needs to do more to address suicide with pro-active, strengths-based, community-level strategies,” Agrawal said. “Whether face-to-face, over the phone or virtually…we are in near-constant communication with others. I think there is power and hope in being able to recognize that there are strategies and actions we can all proactively take in our day-to-day lives that can help prevent suicide in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. The key is recognizing them, knowing how to effectively engage in them and realizing that they can make a difference. It’s not about individual resilience, it’s about collective resilience. It’s about how we interact with one another day-to-day, how we show up in our communities and how our communities show up for us.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

The USF College of Public Health is teaming with the university’s School of Social Work and Department of Criminology, both part of the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, to offer students a new graduate certificate in child advocacy studies.

The certificate is comprised of three courses—one on child maltreatment, one on victimology and the third on family and community violence in public health. Each course is worth three credits.

By the end of the certificate, students will be prepared to work in the child welfare field, especially in the area of child protective services.

“Students will learn about early intervention and prevention to ensure their advocacy begins at the earliest possible point of connection with the family,” noted Christopher Groeber, an associate in research at USF’s School of Social Work who teaches the course on child maltreatment. “Students will also learn about the importance of lived expertise and experience of those they will be serving and learn to focus on listening to hear not just listening to respond.”

According to Dr. Shelly Wagers, an associate professor of criminology who is teaching the victimology course, students will also get experience by examining real-life cases.

“This provides students with both knowledge and actual practice identifying important aspects of the cases and how to then make real service connections for children and families,” she said. “Students get hands-on experience through simulations that prepare them for the realities of working with families experiencing difficulties and are in contact with the systems trying to help them.”

Why a certificate in child advocacy studies now?

“There’s a huge need for graduate-level education on child advocacy,” said Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, a COPH assistant professor and director of the Harrell Center who is teaching the public health segment of the certificate. “Many professionals work with children and adolescents and get very little training to recognize and respond to cases of child maltreatment. Knowing the phone number to report is not enough; we must also strive to understand the system of services and challenges that professionals and families face when trying to address the needs of victims of child maltreatment.”

Better training not only allows those working in child advocacy to more effectively serve children and their families, it also helps prevent burnout—a condition that plagues the field.

“There is an extremely high turnover rate of child protective services workers, which is cause for concern in a field that requires in-depth knowledge of the issue and skilled practitioners to ensure children and families receive quality care and effective intervention services,” said Dr. Sandra Stone, assistant dean of graduate studies who helped bring the certificate to fruition. “Better prepared workers are more likely to remain on the job and provide higher quality services to children and families in their care.”

According to Salinas, this interdisciplinary certificate course is valuable to anyone working in child advocacy.

“Any professional who interacts with children should apply so they can become more knowledgeable about adverse childhood experiences and child maltreatment—and learn how to effectively address them.” 

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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USF College of Public Health (COPH) doctoral candidate Marlene Joannie Bewa was recently recognized for her many accomplishments and skills in the second-annual women’s edition of Tampa Magazines “Women to Watch 2022.”

Bewa is a medical doctor and winner of both a USF Outstanding Young Alumni Award and Golden Bull Award. She also is a United Nations Young Leader, among many other accomplishments.

Tampa Magazines feature article “Charging Forward” concentrated on USF alumnae and highlighted such prestigious Bulls as USF President Rhea Law, Melissa Seixas, state president of Duke Energy and Elizabeth Krystyn, co-founder of Baldwin Krystyn Sherman Partners & Baldwin Risk Partners.

“It’s a great honor to be included in this list alongside other women leaders such as Rhea Law and other prominent women in the Tampa Bay region,” Bewa said. “It’s a sign that our university and city value excellence, service, diversity, equity and inclusion, and they are keen to ensure gender equality including in academia and leadership roles.”

Bewa said she was encouraged to participate in the article by USF Foundation’s India Witte, who is also the former executive director of USF Women in Leadership and Philanthropy (WLP). 

“I am a WLP-endowed scholar, and I was actively involved in WLP’s Women Who Ignite Student Engagement (WISE) Advisory Council,” Bewa noted. “The magazine’s team were following me and were familiar with my research and global engagement work.”

Not one to rest on her (many!) laurels, Bewa is currently hard at work defending her PhD proposal, which focuses on understanding adolescents’ experiences and factors affecting access and utilization of modern contraception methods in Benin Republic (West Africa), where she is from.

She’s being supervised in her research by the COPH’s Drs. Claudia Parvanta, Russell Kirby, Cheryl Vamos and UC Berkeley’s Dr. Ndola Prata. She’s supported by the Schlumberger Foundation, a nonprofit that encourages science and technology education.

Bewa was also selected to receive an emerging scholar award by the Society of Family Planning to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to contraception nationwide in the United States, research she is conducting with the COPH’s Harrell Center Director Abraham Salinas-Miranda. 

And as if that hasn’t been enough, Bewa has also co-authored a paper selected as a top-cited article of 2020-2021. The article was published by Wiley in the American Journal of Community Psychology and is titled “Youth participatory approaches and health equity: conceptualization and integrative review.”

“I would like to give a special shout-out to the Tampa Magazines team, USF Alumni Association, WLP and the USF Foundation for their endless commitment to uplift women,” Bewa said.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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It’s something of a catch-22: Sleep is essential to good health, yet sleep is often reduced after traumatic events like sexual violence.

What can be done to improve the sleep of traumatized people, especially those experiencing sexual trauma and living in low-to-medium income countries with multiple health disparities? 

Conducting research is a first step.

 Cité Soleil: “Violent” and “Marginalized”

To better assess the relationship between sleep disturbances and non-partner sexual violence (NPSV), a team of academic researchers from around the country, including those from USF’s School of Social Work Interdisciplinary Research Lab (SWIRL), studied men and women post-earthquake in Haiti’s Cité Soleil. 

Violence, and in particular sexual violence, affects residents of Cité Soleil disproportionately said the researchers.

It’s a city that’s been characterized as “an understudied urban shantytown … [with the] nation’s most violent and most marginalized neighborhood.”

It’s been estimated that 50 percent of the residents of Cité Soleil have experienced NPSV versus the 7.68 percent in Haiti in general. Despite that grim statistic, the authors are quick to note that most Cité Soleil residents are law-abiding and hard-working.

The research team partnered with Haiti’s OREZON Cité Soleil (Organization for the Renovation and Education of the Cité Soleil Zone) to conduct the work.

The study, “Self-reported sleep disturbance patterns in urban Haitians: A latent class analysis,” 

has several co-authors, including SWIRL Director Dr. Guitele Rahill and Swirl Associate Director Dr. Manisha Joshi, both with USF’s College of Behavioral and Community Sciences (CBCS), School of Social Work and Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, USF College of Public Health associate professor and director of public health initiatives for SWIRL. Salinas-Miranda is also the director of the Harrell Center.

Other authors include the CBCS’ Dr. Kerry Littlewood, New York University’s Dr. Judite Blanc and Florida International’s Dr. Christopher Rice. The research was published in the International Journal of Mental Health in February.

Violence and Sleep Disturbances

The researchers studied not only sleep disturbance among men and women who live in violent Cité Soleil, but they also examined the relationship between NPSV and sleep disturbances. Thirdly, they modeled associations of NPSV experience and sleep disturbance risk factors separately for men and women.

“This study has several unique contributions,” Dr. Rahill said. “The first is in its intentional focus on an understudied community and population whose race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status have rendered it nearly invisible with respect to health research. Our findings indicate that women and men in Cité Soleil are at great risk for suboptimal sleep patterns. In engaging and involving Cité Soleil residents in this study, we respond to an ethical imperative that sleep health and trauma interventions are a moral obligation, a human right and an issue of social justice for individuals worldwide, regardless of their race, ethnicity, country of residence or socioeconomic status.”

The study involved over 500 men and women, most in their late 20s, from Cité Soleil. Interestingly, the researchers found that more men than women in Cité Soleil reported NPSV, although female victims of NPSV reported more sleep disturbances than male victims. 

“The data were obtained through an anonymous survey, which made it easier for men to report having been victims in a setting where non-heteronormative sexual activity is stigmatized and illegal,” Dr. Joshi explained. “But, although more men [31.7 percent] reported experiencing NPSV, women who reported NPSV [22.9 percent] were more likely to report disrupted sleep. Women who reported more frequent sleep disruption were also more likely to report suicidal ideation.”

Other findings:

• Overall, 58 percent of the Haitians studied experienced insomnia (nearly two times the 30 percent reported in the U.S.) and 40 percent restless sleep (more than five times the 7.7 percent prevalence reported outside of Haiti). 
• Sleep disturbance score for NPSV victims was significantly higher than that for non-victims.
• Women and men who reported a higher level of suicide intentions and poorer physical health had increased odds of often having sleep disturbances.
• Women who reported often having sleep disturbances were also more likely to be depressed (although this was not found in men with frequent sleep disturbances).

Sleep Health and Quality of Life

“Sleep health is critical to overall health and quality of life,” noted Dr. Salinas-Miranda. “Yet the amount of sleep is often reduced after traumatic experiences, thus affecting overall sleep health. We encourage physicians, clinicians, public health advocates and policymakers in global and humanitarian settings to accentuate sleep health and NPSV prevention in disaster- preparedness programs, and to incorporate sleep-health promotion activities in interventions implemented after large-scale traumatic events. Even with limited access to medical professionals, sleep-health awareness and health-promotion activities can empower Cité Soleil residents to take charge of their sleep health and improve their overall health and quality of life.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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Run.

Walk.

Skip.

Jog.

Hike.

Unite with the USF College of Public Health (COPH) community and do your virtual 5k your way!

The COPH is hosting its an annual virtual 5K, “Run Family Violence Out of Tampa Bay,” benefiting the USF Harrell Center. The event takes place from March 26-27, 2022 and is sponsored by the Academic Alliance in Dermatology. One hundred percent of proceeds benefit community-academic projects addressing family violence.

The Harrell Center serves as an intermediary between academia and practice to address family violence across the life span. To address this mission, the center connects the technical assistance needs of community organizations with USF students and faculty who have the skills to address these needs.

However, one challenge the center faces is trying to meet the needs of the community through academic solutions, such as research, evaluation, training and advocacy, without an allocated budget.

“We rely on student volunteers and the faculty’s orientation toward community engagement,” Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, assistant professor and director of the Harrell Center, said. “This virtual 5k can help us with that support, which can go a long way.”

Salinas-Miranda and his team say the annual event gathers meaningful support for community-based projects as well as creates awareness about the Harrell Center’s mission. Most importantly, it will shine a light on the role that academia can play in addressing family violence through academic-community partnerships. 

“There is still time to register for the virtual 5k event. One hundred percent of the funds will be used to support community outreach efforts for community-based projects co-led by students, community organizations and faculty,” Salinas said. “This is a crucial collaboration to advance our mission of serving as intermediary between academia and practice to address family violence over the life span in our communities.”

Register here.

Have questions about the virtual 5K? Contact, Dr. Abraham Salinas Miranda.

Contact Kara Steiner at karasteiner@usf.edu for sponsorship information.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

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Suicide is a leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds in Florida. That’s one of several areas of focus in a study led by the University of South Florida (USF).

The USF College of Public Health is contracted by the Florida Department of Health to help collect and analyze specific data for the Florida Violent Death Reporting System (FLVDRS). The FLVDRS keeps track of deaths caused by suicide, homicide, deaths likely caused by violence, legal intervention (with the exception of executions) and unintentional firearm-related deaths.

Karen Liller, professor and principal investigator for the state contract, and her team reviewed 5,017 victims’ cases from 2019 that showed that 69 percent of violent deaths in Florida were caused by suicide. The remainder are primarily attributed to homicide. While most suicide victims tend to be middle-aged or older-white males, Liller and her team are also studying the increasing number of suicides among Black males, especially younger Black males between the ages of 10 and 24.

“Suicides increasing in the younger age groups is critical to study,” Liller said. “Not enough study has been done especially among underrepresented youth, so we are using what we discovered in the FLVDRS to delve deeper into the suicide data of these individuals.”

Liller’s team combed through thousands of death certificates and reports provided by 16 medical examiners district offices and 24 law enforcement agencies, representing more than 40 percent of the state, and sent the data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through a secure portal.

The team wrote narratives from the law enforcement and medical examiner reports. Codes developed from the narratives describe recent life events, known history of psychiatric diagnosis, such as depression and ADHD, known history of self-injurious behavior, engagement with law enforcement, suicide method and scene information. While death certificates provide statewide information, some results are based on data submissions from the participating medical examiner districts and law enforcement agencies. Therefore, not all information represents statewide estimates for violent deaths.

“What is especially important about the FLVDRS is the fact we can learn so much more by reviewing the information from the death certificates, medical examiner reports and law enforcement records for each case,” Liller said. “We are humanizing the victims, rather than focusing solely on statistics, which allows for more effective intervention strategies to prevent deaths.”

In 2019, there were 25 suicides among 10- to 14-year-olds in Florida – the age group’s second leading cause of death behind unintentional injuries. There were 102 suicides among those ages 15 to 19 and 190 were ages 20 to 24.

The FLVDRS was launched in 2018 and joins other states in contributing data to the CDC’s National Violent Death and Reporting System (NVDRS). According to the National Center for Health Statistics, Florida had the third-highest number of violent deaths in 2019, behind California and Texas, and a slightly higher rate than the national average (22.47 vs. 20.5 per 100,000 respectively).

Liller’s team is working with the Florida Department of Health to continue expanding FLVDRS data collection throughout the state to ensure Florida is appropriately represented on a federal level.

The USF research team includes Nicholas Thomas, Jennifer Ramirez, Elizabeth Amoros, Alexis Diblanda, Dr. Abraham Salinas, Rolando Trejos and Kelli Agrawal.

Story reposted from USF Newsroom

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every hour seven people in this country die a violent death. 

A violent death, as defined by the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), is a death by homicide, suicide, legal intervention (excluding execution), a firearms unintentional death or a death with an undetermined intent and a link to violence.

To help stop violent deaths, researchers, law enforcement and policy makers need to determine the “why” behind these acts.

“Knowing the why allows for much more efficacious and tailored prevention programs,” noted Dr. Karen Liller, a USF College of Public Health professor and injury expert. “These are critical answers to know for injury prevention.”  

Details Matter

In 2018, Florida joined the NVDRS. According to its website, “The NVDRS is the only state-based surveillance reporting system that pools more than 600 unique data elements from multiple sources [law enforcement, coroners, toxicology reports and medical examiners, for example] into an anonymous database. 

When the state joined the NVDRS, it partnered with Liller and her team to extract and analyze data on violent deaths. 

Liller is the principal investigator for the state contract and is working with colleagues from the COPH, including Drs. Nicholas Thomas and Abraham Salinas Miranda, abstractors Jennifer Ramirez, Elizabeth Amoros, MPH student Alexis DiBlanda and doctoral students Kelli Agrawal and Rolando Trejos.

“We receive death certificates and medical examiner data from the state to match with the law enforcement data to paint fuller pictures of the deaths,” Liller said. “Through a secure portal, we submit these data to the CDC for the NVDRS, utilizing over 600 variables in a defined dataset. With this linked information, NVDRS is able to provide a more complete picture of the circumstances that contribute to violent deaths.”

Violent death in Florida

Liller and her team have found that the leading cause of violent death in the state is suicide, and that males have a higher injury rate than females. 

“Suicides have long been the most common type of violent death, even though many individuals think about homicides before suicides,” Liller said. “This could be because of the media and other attention given to homicides rather than suicides. And the reasons why males have higher injury rates, in general, than females could be due to gender roles, aggression, risk-taking behaviors, etc.”

Not just how, but why

Understanding the circumstances that surround these deaths is critical, said Liller. 

“For example, if we discover from our data that young Black males who have committed suicide in Florida have experienced life events such as a change in residence or a diagnosis of depression, then programs in schools and communities can begin to target those issues and address coping mechanisms. This can be a step toward a more tailored program and one that can be better evaluated for efficacy. The more we know, the more we become better agents of change so that violent deaths may decrease,” she said.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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“At the height of the pandemic last year, in the midst of lockdowns and school closures, I would hear news about college students in general and how they were being affected, but nothing about international students, who usually experience more stressors than local college students,” Chinyere Reid, a doctoral candidate at the USF College of Public Health (COPH) said. “I was interested to know how they were being psychologically impacted by COVID-19, what their specific stressors were and how they were coping during the pandemic.”

To find out, Reid—who is an international student from Jamaica— surveyed 223 international undergraduate and graduate students at USF and presented her research at the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual meeting. The research, titled “The influence of COVID-19 stress on anxiety and depression in international students during the COVID-19 pandemic,” was conducted with the help of the COPH’s Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, an assistant professor, and associate professor Dr. Jason Beckstead.

Reid, who is concentrating in community and family health, looked at COVID-19 stress (for example, stress over acquiring the virus and experiencing food and supply shortages) and global stress (stress about jobs, finances, relationships, etc.).

The students Reid surveyed were both undergraduate and graduate international students who were mostly 18-24 years old, female and single. 

Surprisingly, Reid found that anxiety scores were higher in undergraduates versus graduate international students.

“Generally, we assume graduate students are more likely to experience more stressful situations than undergraduate students,” Reid noted. “This is because they may be more likely to have jobs and families and are more knowledgeable about resources. However, in our study, we found that undergraduate international students reported greater stress and anxiety during the pandemic.”

What wasn’t so surprising? That as COVID-19 stress mounted in the students, so did depression and anxiety. 

“Findings of this research highlight that overall, international students have suffered from COVID-19 stress, which is associated with increased anxiety and depression,” Reid commented. “I hope that this study will benefit international students and those who provide them services here at USF and in other colleges/universities across the United States. The APHA presentation evoked many questions and discussions about meeting the needs of international college students affected by COVID-19 stress and the role of universities and other communities at-large in addressing this issue and supporting students.”

Reid said the results of the study have been shared with the USF Office of International Services (OIS), whom she partnered with to recruit students. 

“They were very eager to hear the study results (which also showed that OIS was the most utilized campus resource by international students during the pandemic) and will use study findings to evaluate and provide additional support and mental health resources for international students,” she said. “The next steps will be to focus on identifying and understanding coping mechanisms international college students use to manage COVID-19-related stress and the role of social support with their mental health. Ideally, it would be great to do a longitudinal study on these students to examine the effects of COVID-19 stress on their mental health beyond the pandemic.”

Story by Donna Campisano for USF College of Public Health

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October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

The USF College of Public Health Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence is working in collaboration with the Spring of Tampa Bay and the Hillsborough County Domestic Violence Task Force to learn more about the experiences of Black and Afro-Latina women survivors of domestic violence in Hillsborough County, Fla.

The project, called the “Listening Sessions Project,” aims to understand how Black and Afro-Latina women perceive and experience various aspects of the justice system after experiencing domestic violence, according to Dr. Abraham Salinas Miranda, USF COPH assistant professor and director of the Harrell Center.

“Is the domestic violence services experience the same for Black women or Afro-Latinas compared to White women or is it different? By services, we mean criminal justice services and other victim assistance services. We need to investigate any differential treatment or responses with the aim of improving racial equity,” Salinas Miranda said.

The project is conducted in two parts, according to Kacy Amory, project coordinator and USF PhD criminology student who is also serving as a graduate research assistant in the Harrell Center.

The first part consists of an initial survey with questions about their experiences which leads into structured virtual interviews gauging their experiences and recommendations.

Eligible participants must identify as a Black or Afro-Latina woman who has experienced domestic violence in the last 24 months and is a resident of Hillsborough County with access to e-mail and internet.

All participant information will remain confidential, but will come with big impact, according to Amory.

“By sharing their experiences, they’re able to have a direct impact. They are giving their experiences in a way in which they can be directed into recommendations for changes in the system that can also be beneficial for future women who are going through the same circumstances that they did,” Amory said.

“We know that the domestic violence is part of a spectrum of interpersonal violence. When you find domestic violence, you find child maltreatment and other forms of violence. But, underlying the violence are the social determinants of health,” Salinas Miranda said. “There are studies that suggest that providers perceive African-American women in a different way. For instance, they may be less likely to be addressed with a trauma-informed lens and that is systemic racism and discrimination.”

Salinas Miranda also says that “in our county, we are very fortunate that service providers have identified advancing racial equity in domestic violence services as a key goal for our system of care.”

The Spring of Tampa Bay, a certified domestic violence center for Hillsborough County providing services such as a hotline, emergency housing, case management, prevention programs, and legal advocacy is helping to inform women of the option to take part in this project.

According to Florida Department of Law Enforcement, there were 7,083 domestic violence offenses in Hillsborough County in 2020.  

Jen Shtab, coordinated community response trainer for the Spring of Tampa Bay, says the Listening Sessions Project will help get a better understanding of what is happening more locally.

Shtab said she hopes this project exemplifies a commitment toward making changes at the systems level so that all entities can be more responsive to survivors of domestic violence in Hillsborough County.

“The hope is that recommendations will come out of it and that we can begin implementing those recommendations to make changes so that we have a more equitable criminal justice response and more accessible services for women of color who are survivors of domestic violence,” she said.  

To learn more about the Listening Sessions Project, visit the Harrell Center website.

Related media:

Lifeline | The Spring of Tampa Bay [Video]

Lifeline | Victim Assistance and Victim Compensation [Video]

LifeLine | Understanding Injunction for Protection [Video]

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

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