Predictors of Farmers’ Market Shopping among People Receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefits

Promoting use of farmers’ markets (FMs) is a promising community‐level strategy to increase access to nutritious foods such as fruits and vegetables. Yet, FM shopping among people with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits remains low. This research examined predictors of FM shopping among SNAP recipients living within 1 mile of a FM. A cross‐sectional survey of SNAP participants (N = 270) was conducted in 2015 in Cleveland and East Cleveland, OH, USA. Multinomial regression and zero‐truncated Poisson regression analyses were conducted to examine factors associated with FM shopping. Results indicate 48% reported shopping at a FM at least once in the past year, 26% had shopped at a FM before, but not in the last year, and 26% had never shopped at a FM. The multivariable analyses found awareness of FMs and a healthy food incentive program, and four dimensions of healthy food access are significantly associated with FM shopping among SNAP recipients. The food access dimensions included service delivery, spatial‐temporal, personal, and social access. Findings highlight modifiable leverage points for improving the reach of FMs among low‐income populations.     

Post-Discharge Experiences of People with Psychosis Following Partial Hospital Program Completion

Partial hospital programs are day programs which act as a bridge between inpatient and outpatient care for people with severe and persistent mental illness. This study explored the gap that exists in understanding the post-discharge experiences of people who have experienced psychosis. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 8 participants with psychosis, at least 4 weeks after completing partial hospital program. Identified themes included improved sense of wellness, changes in structure/routine, accessing community resources, social support and engagement, engagement in leisure, and impact of medication. Occupational therapists can use these findings to enhance programming at partial hospital programs and other similar programs.     

Building capacity or enforcing normalcy? Engaging with disability scholarship in Africa

In contemporary South African academia, “community engagement” is a valued commodity. My work as a nondisabled white man with disability activists and as editor of the African Journal of Disability is viewed as good for my career, and as an appropriate form of engagement and empowerment. In this article, I engage critically with the question of the extent to which capacity building is simply about increasing capacity. I ask whether capacity building inevitably involves elements of disavowal of the experience and competencies of less powerful people. I compare capacity building to the enforcement of normalcy, a process which disability scholars criticize with justification. I ask whether it is possible in unequal social contexts to engage with the politics of voice without imposing a hegemonic narrative on nondominant voices. I suggest links between the politics of engaged scholarship and processes of domestication of troubling bodies and minds.     

Validating Sizing Them Up: A parent-proxy weight-related quality-of-life measure,with community-based children

Background/Objective: A weight-related Quality of Life (QoL) questionnaire elicits parents’ perceptions to understand the impacts of weight on children's QoL. Sizing Them Up, a parent-proxy of a weight-related instrument, is a proper measure for the purpose, but its psychometric properties have not been validated on a non-clinical child population. This study aimed to thoroughly examine the psychometric properties of the Sizing Them Up on a non-clinical child population. Methods: Children from Taiwan (M_age = 11; SD = 1.02; N = 236) filled out a weight-related QoL instrument (Sizing Me Up) while their parents completed Sizing Them Up and two generic QoL instruments. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), concurrent validity, and known-group validity were conducted. Results: CFA supported the factor structure of Sizing Them Up. The concurrent validity of the Sizing Them Up total score was satisfactory: r = .46 to .53 with other QoL instruments. Known-group validity was supported as obese children had significantly lower Sizing Them Up total score than did normal-weight and underweight children. Conclusions: We extended the use of Sizing Them Up from clinically obese children to a community-based sample of underweight as well as overweight children. Healthcare providers may use Sizing Them Up to measure the weight-related QoL for children.     

The evolving normative dimensions of ‘riot’: Towards an elaborated social identity explanation

The question of how normative form changes during a riot, and thus how collective behaviour spreads to different targets and locations, has been neglected in previous research, despite its theoretical and practical importance. We begin to address this limitation through a detailed analysis of the rioting in the London borough of Haringey in 2011. A triangulated analysis of multiple sources of data (including police reports, media accounts, and videos) finds a pattern of behaviour shifting from collective attacks on police targets to looting. A thematic analysis of 41 interview accounts with participants gathered shortly after the events suggests that a shared anti‐police identity allowed local postcode rivalries to be overcome, forming the basis of empowered action not only against the police but to address more long‐standing grievances and desires. It is argued that collective psychological empowerment operated in a ‘positive feedback loop’, whereby one form of collective self‐objectification (and perceived inability of police to respond) formed the basis of further action. This analysis of the development of new targets in an empowered crowd both confirms and extends the elaborated social identity model as an explanation for conflictual intergroup dynamics.     

Reentry as Experienced by Women in Jail: Advocating for Change

We conducted a phenomenological study with 35 women in a substance abuse treatment jail program about their lived experiences in preparing for reentry. The women addressed their past, the needs of their families, and education of criminal justice personnel, providers, and the whole citizenry. The women advocated for effective reentry practices.     

L’anxiété liée à la COVID-19 : une analyse de ses effets en milieu de travail

The anxiety engendered by the sanitary crisis of the COVID-19 is a novel emotional phenomenon. Due to its recency and novelty, this form of anxiety and its effects are largely unknown. To explore this issue, we conducted a study among 650 civil agents of the Quebec government during the first wave of the pandemic that examined the effects of COVID-19-triggered anxiety on four indicators of work adjustment: job engagement, organizational commitment, psychological empowerment, and ego depletion. While controlling for the effect of relevant contextual factors, our analyses indicate that COVID-19-triggered anxiety is positively related to organizational commitment and ego depletion and negatively related to psychological empowerment. In contrast, COVID-19-triggered anxiety was not significantly related to job engagement.     

Leading the Way on Diversity: Community Psychology's Evolution from Invisible to Individual to Contextual

To take up the AJCP editor's call to think forward in this article, I offer up three challenges that revolve around further contextualizing our understandings of diversity, i.e., reconsidering the notion of “difference” between discrete categories; more fully emphasizing diversity as socially situated; and further delving into local, setting‐specific practices that shape the meanings of diversity. Enhanced attention to these three challenges can transform theory, research, and action about diversity as we move into community psychology's next 50 years.     

Assessing Community Participation: Comparing Self‐Reported Participation Data with Organizational Attendance Records

How well do self‐reported levels of community and organizational participation align with recorded acts of community and organizational participation? This study explores this question among participants in social action community organizing initiatives by comparing responses on a community participation scale designed to retrospectively assess community participation (T1, n = 482; T2, n = 220) with individual participants' attendance records in various social action organizing activities over two 1‐year periods. By testing the self‐reported measure's overall and item‐by‐item association with documented participation in various types of organizing activities, we find that the self‐report measure is positively, but weakly correlated with actual participation levels in community organizing activities. Moreover, associations between self‐report and recorded acts of participation differ by types of activity. Examining this unique source of data raises important questions about how community participation is conceptualized and measured in our field. Implications are explored for theory and measurement of participation in community and organizational contexts.     

Individual,Housing, and Neighborhood Predictors of Psychological Integration Among Vulnerably Housed and Homeless Individuals

The current longitudinal study evaluated the individual, housing, and neighborhood characteristics predictive of feeling psychologically integrated within one's neighborhood among a population of homeless and vulnerably housed individuals. Participants were recruited at homeless shelters, meal programs, and rooming houses in Ottawa, Canada and participated in three in‐person interviews, each approximately 1 year apart. Prospective and cross‐sectional predictors of psychological integration at Follow‐up 1 and Follow‐up 2 were examined. There were 397 participants at baseline, 341 at Follow‐up 1 and 320 at Follow‐up 2. A hierarchical multiple regression uncovered several significant predictors of psychological integration. The most salient and common predictors were being older, having greater social support, living in high quality housing, and residing in a neighborhood with a positive impact. Implications for service provision and policy advancements are discussed.