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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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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While 32.5 percent of women in Haiti have experienced a form of intimate partner violence (IPV), the determinants are not well understood.

But, researchers from the USF College of Public Health’s Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence have delved more into the “who.”

Dr. Abraham Salinas-Miranda, director of the Harrell Center, and James Occean, an undergraduate USF chemistry student and Harrell Center research intern, examined the “Prevalence and Factors Associated With Intimate Partner Violence Among Women in Haiti: Understand Household, Individual, Partner, and Relationship Characteristics.” Their work has been published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

“Intimate partner violence is a significant public health problem in developing countries, specifically in my native country, Haiti,” said Occean, who is also a research assistant in Dr. Monica Uddin’s lab at the USF Genomics Program.

Using results from the 2016-2017 Haiti Demographic and Health Survey, they examined the prevalence of IPV and its subtypes (emotional, physical, and sexual abuse) among married or cohabitating women between the ages of 15 to 49 years by their husbands or partners.

“The Haiti Demographic Health Survey is a nationally representative dataset, which is supported by USAID and uses the gold standard methodology of population-based surveys; and this was the latest data available for Haiti,” Salinas-Miranda said.

They found that of the 32.5 percent of women who experienced IPV, 24.7 percent was emotional, 16.8 percent was physical and 10.5 percent was sexual violence.

They also found the odds of reporting IPV were influenced by a range of other factors.

“Women who reported being afraid of their husband also reported experiencing IPV, and we saw that women who reported controlling behaviors—such as their husband not letting them see friends—also experienced IPV,” Occean said.

Having children in the home, exhibiting attitudinal acceptance of “wife-beating,” previously witnessing their own father beating their mother, and having a partner who drank alcohol were all shown to increase the likelihood of a woman experiencing IPV.

“We also saw that women who witnessed parental IPV were also more likely to report IPV victimization and this shows that, not only does it affect the women, but if affects future generations,” Occean said.

Salinas-Miranda, who mentored Occean during his first publication, said that these findings point to the need for a cultural change.

“These findings indicate a need to really work at changing the culture of male-dominance or patterns of toxic masculinity that may be there,” Salinas-Miranda said. “The fact that a sizable portion of women accept wife-beating is very concerning.”

Salinas-Miranda said while this is an initial study, future studies could examine how those factors differ in varying provinces in Haiti and how it compares to other countries.

“It’s reassuring to see a young male trying to do research in this area because it’s a problem that affects us all. Yes, it’s gender-based violence, but it affects us all and we should all care about this. Men play a key role in breaking the cycle of violence,” he said. “While we assisted James initially, he eventually took off on his own, and we are extremely proud of him.”

 Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health

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Dr. Martha Coulter and COPH alumna Melissa Mercado-Crespo published “Co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment: Service providers perceptions.”  The research appears in the February issue of the Journal of Family Violence.

Martha Coulter, DrPH, MSW

Coulter is a professor in the USF College of Public Health’s Department of Community and Family Health.  She also directs The Harrell Center, an intermediary between research and practice that seeks to end family violence by understanding it.  Mercado-Crespo is one of 3,000 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Melissa Mercado-Crespo, PhD

* * *

Coulter, M., Mercado-Crespo, M. (2015) Co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment: Service providers perceptions. Journal of Family Violence.  DOI 10.1007/s10896-014-9667-5.

The research is posted online.

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In April, the Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence announced a book drive for children in the Himalayas.  The initiative was in collaboration with RIWATCH, the Research Institute of World’s Ancient Traditions Cultures and Heritage, to promote reading for children in rural areas.  The month-long drive resulted in the collection of four boxes of soft-covered, light-weight books for children and adolescents.

USF public health and social work students traveled to Roing, India, and delivered the reading materials via bicycle.

“The children in India were happy to receive new reading materials,” said Natasha Hojati, a student assistant with the Harrell Center.  “A big thanks is sent out to all the involved parties that made this possible.”

Based in the USF College of Public Health Department of Community and Family Health, the mission of The Harrell Center is to develop and integrate knowledge with best practices to strengthen community responses to family violence.  In essence, they seek to end family violence by understanding it.

Jessica Gipson, a public health graduate student and president of the Maternal and Child Health Student Organization, presented a book donation to librarian Sathyanarayanan Mundayoor in Roing, India.

Jessica Gipson and librarian Sathyanarayanan Mundayoo with beneficiaries of the book drive in India.

Story and photos courtesy of Natasha Hojati, The Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence

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The Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence is collecting books for children in the Himalayans.  In collaboration with the Research Institute of World’s Ancient Traditions Cultures and Heritage (RIWATCH), this effort promotes reading for children in rural areas.

A community initiative program, RIWATCH organized “Joy of Reading” workshops to promote good reading habits among children of different schools in and around Roing, Lower Dibang Valley, India.

“We seek soft-covered books that are in good condition for children and adolescents,” said Martha Coulter, DrPH, MSW, professor and director of The Harrell Center.  “These donations will be delivered by bicycle, which is why we ask specifically for soft covered books that are light weight. “

The Harrell Center is partnering with Vijay Swami, a librarian based in India, to deliver the books. He seeks recreational reading materials and educational books.

“With all of your support, the library movement will reach at the door level of every child, so that they can become better humans in the world,” Swami said. “We appreciate your efforts.”

Collection boxes are conveniently located in the Colleges of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine, as well as the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center, School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences, Shimberg Health Sciences Library, USF Health Faculty Office Building, and The WELL.  Donations can also be mailed to The Harrell Center, 13201 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., MDC 56, Tampa, FL 33612-3807.

Book donations are accepted through the last week in April. For additional information contact The Harrell Center’s director Dr. Coulter at mcoulter@health.usf.edu or student assistant Natasha Hojati at nhojati@health.usf.edu.

The mission of The Harrell Center is to develop and integrate knowledge with best practices to strengthen community responses to family violence. In essence, they seek to end family violence by understanding it.

The Department of Community and Family Health in the USF College of Public Health is the academic home for The Harrell Center.  The department offers more than 10 concentrations that lead to MPH, MSPH, DrPH, and PhD degrees, as well as dual degrees, special programs, and graduate certificates.

Written by Natasha Hojati, The Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence

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