Connecting adverse childhood experiences and community health to promote health equity

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have negative effects on health outcomes across the lifespan. Furthermore, the effects of ACEs are often compounded by social determinants of health and historical and contemporary trauma that can affect entire communities. The socio‐ecological model is a valuable framework for understanding the complex systems in which efforts to promote health equity are situated. Using a trauma‐informed lens, community health becomes a powerful focal point for viable prevention and treatment options to address ACEs and promote health equity. Self‐healing on a community level involves collective engagement; people most affected by ACEs and trauma come together around activities that have the potential to lift up the entire community and foster individual and community resilience. The use of community health research and evaluation methods that are consistent with trauma‐informed, empowerment approaches can contribute to community healing. This paper is intended to establish a common language for how community healing can address ACEs and foster health equity.     

The Necessity of a Non-Reductionist Science of Politics

The major tendency within the discipline of political science has been to try to achieve a science modeled on the natural sciences and mathematics, following the pattern of other social sciences. This tendency has led to many reductionistic efforts to explain political behavior in terms of one or more functions, such as power, linguistic, psychical, or the economic. The institutional community of government and citizens—the political community or state—is thus overlooked or reduced to one or more functions. In critique of this tendency, this paper shows how the work on entities and functions by the Dutch legal philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd illumines the errors of reductionism and points the way to a multi-functional entity science of the political community.     

Ecology, Community, and AIDS Prevention

I explore the role that may be played by an ecological view of AIDS prevention and AIDS-related social concerns. The study of AIDS risk behavior and interventions designed to prevent AIDS have challenged Health Psychology's typically individualistic perspective. Issues of empowerment, psychological sense of community, interpersonal ties, resources, and culture are central to an understanding of risky sexual behavior and helping people to guard themselves from the threat of AIDS. However, despite Community Psychology's historical expertise in these areas, the field has only recently become involved in AIDS prevention efforts. I outline how resource-based, ecological theories may prove more helpful in addressing the AIDS pandemic than the individual, cognitive theories that have typically been adopted. Sexual behavior and associated risk are tied not simply to people's personal behavior and thoughts but to the likelihood of disease exposure in their ethnic group, the power and choices associated with power in that group, and the alternative means available of meeting their overall sexual, romantic, economic, and social goals. As such, AIDS research and intervention must simultaneously address the individual, social, and cultural spheres if insights that can translate to meaningful change can be expected to occur.     

Testimonio,a Bridge Between Psychotherapy and Sociotherapy

The Testimonio, or Testimony, is a therapeutic tool in the treatment of people who have suffered psychological trauma under state terrorism. This article discusses the historical origins and social and clinical applications. The objective realities of the terrorist state are examined in terms of their toxic effects on the community, and the process of Testimony is presented as both a psychotherapeutic clinical method for improving the mental health of the individual, and an act of social and political therapy that makes a significant contribution to community mental health. Using examples drawn from women who are managing an accomodation to political repression, and their exiled sisters who have had to flee for refuge, the article compares the use of Testimony in a public, social setting with its use in the clinical setting. Through this comparison the interactive psychological and political dimensions of the process are observed as critical for the healing of personal and social wounds, and equally effective in both settings.     

When to Preach About Poverty: How Location,Race, and Ideology Shape White Evangelical Sermons

Social scientists have long been interested in how intergroup contact or elite messaging can reduce or eliminate racial biases. To better understand the role of religious elites in these political questions, we show how a church location's income and racial characteristics interact with racial and economic ideologies to shape the political content of sermons. Testing our theories through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of an original data set of more than 102,000 sermons from more than 5200 pastors, we show that contact is only effective as a means of decreasing prejudice to the extent that actors—in our case, pastors—are ideologically capable of reconciling their potential role in economic inequality. White Evangelical pastors rarely preach about issues of poverty or racial justice overall, but the context of the preaching matters. We find that the greater the share of Black population there is in a church community, the less likely White Evangelical pastors are to mention issues of poverty or racial justice, and when they do mention it, they hold to ideological commitments that avoid blaming systems for racialized economic inequality.     

Article for “Diversity Stories in Community Research and Action” Facing Resistance in Waking Up to Privilege

In 1994, out of a population of 45 million people an estimated 7.7 million people lived in informal settlements in South Africa (South African Institute of Race Relations, 1994). This article focuses on one community whose residents' desperation to own housing contributed to community disintegration, typified by infighting among women, and threats to human life. Issues of diversity became more prominent and destabilized community-building efforts. One effort to collaboratively break down barriers that deterred women from working together is presented to illustrate how these women created bonds based on "discovered similarities." The participatory and personal-experience approach described here contributed to their becoming active protagonists of their learning and encouraged tolerance and understanding among community women from differing ethnic, linguistic, and political backgrounds. The article concludes with a discussion of the critical importance of recognizing and working with and through differences within the current South African reality.     

Social Change: Toward an Informed and Critical Understanding of Social Justice and the Capabilities Approach in Community Psychology

Community psychology has long been concerned with social justice. However, deployments of this term are often vague and undertheorized. To address this weakness in the field's knowledge body we explored John Rawls's theory of social justice and Amartya Sen's economic theory of the capabilities approach and evaluated each for its applicability to community psychology theory, research, and action. Our unpacking of the philosophical and political underpinnings of Rawlsian theory of social justice resulted in identifying characteristics that limit the theory's utility in community psychology, particularly in its implications for action. Our analysis of the capability approach proposed by Amartya Sen revealed a framework that operationalizes social justice in both research and action, and we elaborate on this point. Going beyond benefits to community psychology in adopting the capabilities approach, we posit a bi‐directional relationship and discuss how community psychology might also contribute to the capabilities approach. We conclude by suggesting that community psychology could benefit from a manifesto or proclamation that provides a historical background of social justice and critiques the focus on the economic, sociological, and philosophical theories that inform present‐day conceptualizations (and lack thereof) of social justice for community psychology.     

Waimānalo Pono Research Hui: A Community–Academic Partnership to Promote Native Hawaiian Wellness through Culturally Grounded and Community‐Driven Research and Programming

Although Hawai‘i is often portrayed as an idyllic paradise and is recognized as one of the healthiest States in the United States, pervasive health disparities exist among Native Hawaiians. Similar to other indigenous populations across the globe, these disparities are linked to unjust social and economic policies rooted in colonization and historical trauma. Western‐centric efforts to address these disparities have yielded limited results. Consequently, indigenous frameworks to decolonize western‐centric research processes have emerged. The Waimānalo Pono Research Hui is an example of a community–academic partnership that uses indigenous methodologies and principles of community‐based participatory research as the foundation to engage Native Hawaiian community members in research. Monthly gatherings are held where community members and academic researchers share a meal and discuss community priorities with the goal of shaping research and programming that are rooted in Native Hawaiian values. A mission for the group has been created as well as protocols for community engagement to ensure all projects that work with the Waimānalo Pono Research Hui are ethically sound and grounded in the community's preferences, cultural knowledge, and lived experiences. Our community members continually report that the Waimānalo Pono Research Hui has positively transformed their perception of and willingness to engage in research. Similarly, university students and academic researchers express how much their knowledge about working with communities has grown and inspired them. Creating spaces for communities and researchers to build authentic relationships and engage in ongoing conversations can promote culturally grounded and community‐driven research and programming.     

Some reflections on potential abuses of psychology’s knowledge and practices

This article identifies ten implicit and explicit assumptions of Western psychology that are rooted within its cultural history, traditions, and values. Unfortunately, these assumptions have informed and dominated the knowledge and practice of psychology across the world because of historic, cultural, political, and economic reasons. It is now clear, however, that the indiscriminate acceptance and application of Western psychological knowledge and practices constitutes a serious abuse for non-Western people and for ethnic/racial minorities in Western nations. This abuse is often transmitted and exacerbated via the training of international and ethnic minority students who learn to accept Western psychology as universal. In a global community in which all our lives have become interdependent, it is essential Western psychology be re-considered as a “cultural construction” with all the ethnocentric limitations this implies. As a counter, efforts must be made to acknowledge, develop, and transmit the diverse indigenous/national psychologies from across the world.     

Connecting Youth Violence Prevention, Positive Youth Development, and Community Mobilization

Several disconnects serve to weaken the use of evidence based programming in community settings. Communities face the need to address the challenges of multiple risk behaviors faced by adolescents in their communities, but must also work to support successful transitions to adulthood and the broader positive development of their youth. The stronger integration of positive youth development and prevention of youth risk at the community level may offer an opportunity to support the implementation and ongoing development of evidence-based practices (EBPs). This article provides an overview of the VCU Clark-Hill Institute for Positive Youth Development Institute's community mobilization effort in Richmond, Virginia and reports preliminary findings from our integrated mobilization efforts. First, we review the role of our Community Advisory Council in their collaborative work to support positive youth development and reduce risk for youth violence. Next, we present examples of institute efforts in providing technical assistance relevant to supporting the use and development of EBPs. We then discuss the adaptation of an evidence-based program to target positive youth development. We also present overviews from qualitative investigations examining barriers and supports that inform and are relevant to the implementation of EBPs. Finally, we consider ways in which community efforts inform and shape institute efforts to develop EPBs. Taken together, these activities provide examples of how community-based mobilization efforts can integrate and inform the implementation of EBPs and the role and use of prevention science as a tool in supporting effective programming to promote positive youth development and prevent youth violence.     

How living in economically unequal societies shapes our minds and our social lives

In recent decades, the economies of many countries have produced increasingly unequal outcomes for the rich and poor. This economic trend has attracted interest from members of the media, public and political classes as well as researchers who are interested in its societal implications. While this research has traditionally been the purview of economists and sociologists, there has been a burgeoning growth in research that has sought to understand the psychology of economic inequality. In this review, we summarize this work, focusing on two major themes: (1) how people perceive the scale of economic inequality and appraise its significance, and (2) how living in an economically unequal environment shapes people's social lives. Together, this work affirms claims that economic inequality is ‘the defining issue of our time’ (Obama, 2013) with a great deal of destructive potential. We identify important questions that await further research attention.     

Stigma-Busting,Compeer, and the Psychology Student: A Pilot Study on the Impact of Contact with a Person Who Has a Mental Illness

Stigma has been identified both by people with mental illnesses and by empirical research to be a major barrier to service use and recovery. In addition, research has suggested that the most effective strategy for reducing stigma is personal contact with a person who has a mental illness and who is contributing to the life of the community. This article reports the qualitative findings from a study of the use of the Compeer model to address stigma in undergraduate psychology students. Findings suggest that befriending a person with a mental illness, even when done as a requirement for a college course, can be a useful experience in exposing and challenging stigmatizing perceptions and expectations and in offering people insights into the humanity and life experiences of a person with mental illness. Limitations and implications of this study for future stigma-busting efforts are discussed.     

Valuing Our Communities: Ethical Considerations for Economic Evaluation of Community‐Based Prevention

Restricted public budgets and increasing efforts to link the impact of community interventions to public savings have increased the use of economic evaluation. While this type of evaluation can be important for program planning, it also raises important ethical issues about how we value the time of local stakeholders who support community interventions. In particular, researchers navigate issues of scientific accuracy, institutional inequality, and research utility in their pursuit of even basic cost estimates. We provide an example of how we confronted these issues when estimating the costs of a large‐scale community‐based intervention. Principles for valuing community members’ time and conducting economic evaluations of community programs are discussed.     

Facing ambiguity with action

An insurrection, threats to our election system, and widespread distrust have spurred a national conversation about civic engagement. Many people of faith are responding with a desire to take action. However, the path to action is often deeply ambiguous. How we choose to take action that counts. This article is a personal reflection on how political engagement can animate faith and faith can guide political engagement. It suggests constant reflection on the subtle ways we can be led into complacency or inaction when interacting with political institutions. By reflecting on these mechanisms and connecting with our faith communities, this article posits that people of faith can thoughtfully and boldly make the daily decisions that make up our civic engagement.     

Maximizing therapeutic effects in treating sexual offenders in an Australian correctional system

In Australia, the community response to sexual offenders is marked by uncertainty as to whether offenders should be incarcerated as punishment or provided treatment in order to reduce the likelihood of re-offense. The incarceration of sexual offenders results in particular management, ethical, and political issues. Nevertheless incarceration can provide leverage to encourage the offender to participate in treatment while delivering punishment for wrongdoing and acting to protect the community. In the state of Victoria the CORE Sex Offender Programs have developed a statewide strategy in the public correctional system in order to assess, manage, and treat male sexual offenders. However, such offenders are notoriously reluctant to engage in treatment to address offending behaviors. A critical element of the strategy has been the Victorian Adult Parole Board, an entity that can determine that an offender needs to engage in treatment before he is considered for parole. Using the therapeutic jurisprudence framework as outlined by Wexler (1990), strategies to minimize the anti-therapeutic effects of the Victorian Adult Parole Board and maximize the therapeutic effects of the CORE Sex Offender Programs are highlighted.     

Achieving community justice through faith-based initiatives

Prior to 1996, most churches and other faith-based organizations were ineligible to receive federal funding for community services. In a little noticed provision of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 known as 'charitable choice,' the federal government allowed religious groups to receive money for social programs without requiring them to censor their religious expression or give up their religious identity. States, with varying degrees of vigor and success, have partnered with faith-based organizations to provide community services that serve the purpose of transitioning people from welfare to work. Recent political developments and legislation suggest an expanded role for faith-based organizations to receive federal money to develop community services, including money for community justice projects. The Comment begins with an overview of the political and legal contexts that allow the development of promoting community justice initiatives through faith-based efforts. Next, there is a discussion of practical considerations that influence decisions of churches and faith-based organizations to participate in these activities. Finally, there is discussion of the roles social scientists and others might play to facilitate community justice initiatives through faith-based efforts.     

The Structure of Social Exchange in Self-help Support Groups: Development of a Measure

Self-help support groups are indigenous community resources designed to help people manage a variety of personal challenges, from alcohol abuse to xeroderma pigmentosum. The social exchanges that occur during group meetings are central to understanding how people benefit from participation. This paper examines the different types of social exchange behaviors that occur during meetings, using two studies to develop empirically distinct scales that reliably measure theoretically important types of exchange. Resource theory informed the initial measurement development efforts. Exploratory factor analyses from the first study led to revisions in the factor structure of the social exchange scales. The revised measure captured the exchange of emotional support, experiential information, humor, unwanted behaviors, and exchanges outside meetings. Confirmatory factor analyses from a follow-up study with a different sample of self-help support groups provided good model fit, suggesting the revised structure accurately represented the data. Further, the scales demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity with related constructs. Future research can use the scales to identify aspects of social exchange that are most important in improving health outcomes among self-help support group participants. Groups can use the scales in practice to celebrate strengths and address weaknesses in their social exchange dynamics.     

Application of Personality Theories and Counseling Strategies to Clients With Physical Disabilities

This article describes how certain relevant theoretical concepts, intervention methods, and criteria for determining therapeutic change, which are borrowed from several personality theories and counseling approaches, can be useful in counseling people with physical disabilities. The clinical utility of each discussed personality theory is explored in the context of the efforts directed at (a) gaining insight into the psychosocial impact of physical disability, (b) counseling for personal adjustment to the disability, and (c) becoming familiar with theory-specific guidelines for assessing therapeutic changes. It is argued that counselors who serve clients with disabilities ought to choose those interventions most congruent with their own theoretical orientation, academic training, work setting, and nature of the disability condition.     

Providential Understandings of Childhood and Public Policy: The Politics of Generation, Future Adulthood and Moral Regulation of Sexuality in Liberal Democracies

This article focuses on the resurgence of regulation of children’s and young people’s sexuality in the UK, Canada and the US despite the efforts, and some success, of feminist and LGBT movements to broaden notions of gender, sexuality and the family. Although different institutional structures and the complexity of the political process are both important factors, this comparative analysis considers the ideational realm and how symbolic ideas shape and are shaped by public policy. While political mobilization of social conservatives is often cited as the cause of this resurgence, when we pay attention to this realm, we can locate a much broader, robust and politically salient foundation for these symbolic ideas in academic concerns of the disciplines and utilitarian concerns of the state. The evidence presented below demonstrates that in all three cases, despite the different political contexts, the enabling political compromise between the various political actors is centred on the protection of children which, in turn, rests on the symbolic ideas of childhood in relation to adulthood (generation), including providential understandings of childhood as an imagined future adulthood based on an ideal of the proper expression of adult sexuality. In understanding these symbolic meanings and paying attention to their use in the legislative process, we can improve our understanding of how regulation of sexuality persists and even intensifies in new ways.