Collaboration of Churches and Service Providers: Meeting the Needs of Older African Americans

ABSTRACT

This article describes a community outreach volunteer project designed to reach frail community-based older adults. The project is an example of church and secular agency collaboration in which the church provides leadership in volunteer recruitment and the agency provides training and outreach activity monitoring. The church's role in this project illustrates that small and medium-size African American churches can play an important role in mobilizing volunteer resources and can perform a linking role in helping secular agencies to gain access to frail, hard-to-reach, low-income older adults.     

Physical,Psychological and Social Adaptation of African American Nuns to Their Religious Communities as They Age: Implications for Aging in Place

ABSTRACT

This study examined the association between health status, stress, depression, satisfaction with the relationship with the religious community, alienation from significant persons, racial/cultural identity and “aging in place,” as measured by length of time in the same religious community, for a purposive sample of 72 African American nuns. Aging in place was significantly associated with perceptions of better health status, less stress and depression and greater satisfaction with relationships with the religious community. However, the study also found that the longer the nuns lived in their respective communities, the less racially/culturally identified they became. These findings underscore the need for finding ways to keep nuns in their religious communities as they age and to provide avenues of racial/cultural expression for African American nuns.     

Childhood Maltreatment and PTSD: Spiritual Well-Being and Intimate Partner Violence as Mediators

Childhood maltreatment places individuals, including African American women who are undereducated and economically disadvantaged, at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Participants were 192 African American women with a history in the prior year of both a suicide attempt and intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure. They were recruited from a public hospital that provides medical and mental health treatment to mostly low-income patients. A simple mediator model was used to examine if (a) existential well-being (sense of purpose) or religious well-being (relationship with God) mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms. Sequential multiple mediator models determined if physical and nonphysical IPV enhanced our understanding of the mediational association among the aforementioned variables. Findings suggest that existential well-being mediated the association between childhood maltreatment and adult PTSD symptoms in a simple mediator model, and existential well-being and recent nonphysical IPV served as sequential multiple mediators of this link. However, religious well-being and physical IPV were not significant mediators. Findings underscore the importance of enhancing existential well-being in the treatment of suicidal African American women with a history of childhood maltreatment and IPV.     

Who is David and who is Goliath? The Eddie Long scandal and the black mega-church

The recent scandal involving Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church has led millions of individuals to evaluate the guilt or innocence of Bishop Long as well the significance of the black mega-church. This study examined the possible effects of a well-publicised scandal involving a black mega-church pastor on the mental health of African Americans within and outside of the church. To address this paucity in the research, over 3000 comments made by anonymous contributors on CNN's public website were analysed using a grounded theory methodology. The following five themes were identified: (1) Keep an Open Mind: “Most People Thrive on Negativity;” (2) Hypocrisy as Part of Religion: “They aren’t real Christians;” (3) Greed as Part of Religion: “Just in it for the money;” (4) Religion and/or Christianity as Problematic: “Christians scare the Jesus out of me;” and (5) Religious Leaders Actions are separate from Individuals’ Personal Faith and Their Relationship with God: “You don’t put your faith in a man.” Narratives will be offered to support and illustrate each of these themes, and the implications for the mental health of African Americans will be discussed.     

Relationship between church attendance and mental health among Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah

A prevention model was applied to assess the protective effect of religion and church attendance against mental illness among respondents to the 1996 Utah Health Status Survey. Compared to Mormons that attend church weekly (active), less active Mormons, less active non-Mormons, and those with no religious preference, because of emotional problems, are at increased risk of accomplishing less than desired (model 1); having trouble doing work or other activities as carefully as desired (model 2); and seeking professional help (model 3). After adjusting for alcohol and tobacco use, education, income, physical activity, general health status, employment, body mass index, gender and age, only less active Mormons and those with no religious preference remained at significantly increased risk in model 3. Self-reported health status was the strongest predictor of mental health in each model. Active Mormons reported having the best health status and, consequently, the lowest levels of mental illness.     

Religious coping,stigma, and psychological functioning among HIV-positive African American women

The present study examined the role of religious coping in psychological distress and adjustment both cross-sectionally and longitudinally among 141 HIV-positive African American women. Cross-sectional analyses showed that negative religious coping was associated with poorer mental health and functioning, and greater perceptions of stigma and discrimination. Longitudinal analyses revealed that greater negative religious coping at baseline significantly predicted greater changes in mental health in a negative direction 12 months later. Positive religious coping was not associated with any measures of psychological well-being, nor did it predict any mental health outcomes at 12 months. However, participants who experienced high levels of HIV-related stigma and reported high levels of positive religious coping were less depressed than those who reported lower levels of positive religious coping. These results suggest that for this population, negative religious coping was a more salient determinant of psychological distress than positive religious coping was of psychological health.     

Risk Factors for Educator-Targeted Bullying: A Social-Ecological Perspective

This study investigated educator-targeted bullying (ETB) in a South African school setting from a social-ecological perspective. Seven survivors of ETB were interviewed using open ended questions. The data were content analysed for themes. The main findings of the study were: (1) bullies are undisciplined individuals who lack parental support; (2) school and classroom management styles may encourage ETB; and (3) a lack of positive values in the community and a disregard for authority figures perpetuate ETB. Survivors of ETB perceived to lack support from colleagues, school management, and parents of the offending learners.     

Researching Child Sexual Abuse in South Africa: Complexities in the Field

This study reports on my fieldwork experiences applying qualitative research strategies to study child sexual abuse in South Africa. It considers the challenges associated with, at three stages of data collection: ethical clearance, recruitment and data collection, followed by possible solutions. The study also considers the challenges from ethical and epistemological perspectives. I used a reflective self-study to analyse my experiences. My experiences revealed the following challenges: ethical process due to reasons not linked to the content of the research process would cause delays to the field-work. In addition, the use of [formal institutions] welfare institutions as sole research sites would result in a homogenous sample that does not permit comparison of experiences among the abuse cases. The costs to the researcher in terms of emotional and physical investment can be significant.     

Home Brewed Alcohol use Among High School Students in a Rural South African Community

This study investigates the use of home brewed alcoholic beverages among adolescents in high schools in a rural community in South Africa. There is much concern about alcohol misuse among young people and very little information exists on alcohol produced by the informal liquor industry in South Africa. A total of 1600 high school students participated in the study. The prevalence rates for past year use of home brewed alcohol was 22.2%. There was association between home brewed alcohol use and correlates such as “lived in city”; “raised by both parents”; “repeating school year”; “poor scholastic progress”; “absenteeism” “getting into trouble”, “arguing with parents/friends”; “neglecting homework”; and “recreation/leisure”. The prevalence rates for home brewed alcoholic beverages use in this rural schools calls for more research that focuses on home brews which could lead to the development of appropriate health promotion intervention in schools.     

Exploring the Validity of the Values-In-Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) in an African Context

This study explored the validity of the Values-In-Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) in an African context. A convenience sample of 256 African students completed the VIA-IS in English. The majority of strengths subscales had good reliability coefficients and mean scores comparable to those reported in a Western context. Satisfactory criterion-related validity was established through correlations with other well-being indices. First and second order confirmatory factor analyses only partly supported construct validity. All strengths subscales consisted of more than one factor. The hypothesised six-virtue cluster pattern was partially supported. Exploratory factor analysis suggested the possibility of an emic factor pattern of strengths consisting of 3 components: Within the first factor, Intrapersonal and Relationship Strengths, two clusters are distinguished, namely, Intrapersonal Strengths, and Horizontal and Vertical Relationship Strengths. The second factor was Integrity in Group Context. Thus, the VIA-IS has merit, but is not completely valid in its original form.