Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Fighting For The Public’S Health: Challenges And Opportunities To Reinvigorate Public Health Advocacy, Madeleine S. Frey

Georgia Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Conference

Background

Covid-19 shed a painful light on racial health disparities. As health officials asserted their public health authority to stop the pandemic and promote health equity, elected officials moved to limit their ability to do so. Without strong advocacy infrastructure, public health has struggled to defend its legal public health authority, support the workforce, and ensure equitable health outcomes for everyone.

Methods

Fighting for Public Health, a 2022 Feasibility Study from the Network for Public Health Law, assessed what’s happening in public health advocacy, and what’s needed to strengthen it on state and national levels. With funding from Healthcare …

Bars To Bridges: Culturally Responsive Education Advocacy, Micaella Flores, Christine Otto

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

We'll explore tangible ways to advocate for BIPOC students who've experienced educational disruptions. We’ll discuss the methods and model The Bars to Bridges Program uses to successfully transition justice involved youth into their academic settings and maintain engagement in education.

Witnessing Anew: Human Rights Advocacy For Migrants At The U.S. Southern Border In Covid-19 Times, Ellen Maccarone

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this paper I provide a case study of transnational migrant advocacy done by the Kino Border Initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly before the pandemic I spent a week with KBI for an immersion experience part of which focused on the ideas of human rights advocacy and witnessing. “Witness” in this context has both a spiritual/moral dimension and an experiential one that can form a foundation for advocacy. Using accounts of migrants to inform and humanize changed when interpersonal witnessing became impossible during the pandemic. This increased the levels of human rights abuses experienced by migrants and limited the …

Counter-Diffusion: Does Russian Propaganda Wind Up In America?, Christopher F. Patane, Marc S. Polizzi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Does the norm diffusion process work in reverse? Specifically, does the success of the Russian government in building counternarratives and counternorms to reinforce its authoritarian government mean they have the ability to diminish successful human rights advocacy in the United States? This project examines whether the rhetoric used to justify anti-LGBT policies in Russia are broadcast and adopted by anti-LGBT groups in the United States. In the United States, public support for LGBT civil rights is often cited as a success story in the adoption and diffusion of human rights norms. Often, this is used as evidence of broadening norm …

Gambling Treatment Diversion Court: First In Nevada, Denise F. Quirk Ma, Carol O'Hare, Cheryl Moss Jd, Dayvid Figler Esq., Sydney Smith M.A.

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The first Gambling Treatment Diversion Court was established in Las Vegas, Nevada in fall of 2018 following more than 25 years of effort by passionately concerned non-profit Executives, therapists, lawyers and judges. This panel represents one leader from each of those areas, including Judge Cheryl Moss, the first judge to open the Gambling Treatment Diversion Court (GTDC), Dayvid Figler, the first attorney to successfully represent a gambling client and refer her to the GTDC, Carol O'Hare, Executive Director of the non-profit Nevada Council on Problem Gambler with 25+ years leadership and advocacy for problem gamblers, Sydney Smith, M.A., Clinical Director …

The Importance Of Advocating For Lgbtq+ Youth In Schools And The Community., Stefanie N. Hassing

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

This presentation is aimed to provide professionals who work with children, including educators, administrators, counselors, and adult volunteers, information regarding the increased risks and needs for the LGBT+ population between the ages of 10-19 and how to advocate for them within community and school settings.

Shaming The Truth: Naming And Shaming And Transitional Justice, Christopher F. Patane, Marc S. Polizzi

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

While it is generally recognized that “naming and shaming” carried out by transnational human rights actors can lead to an improvement in aggregate conditions, it is less clear whether this strategy influences more specific behavior. As more states are democratizing, the international community has stepped up efforts at transitional justice to promote accountability and reconciliation. What is unclear is whether this promotion has been positive or negative for the pursuit of transitional justice broadly or if the community prioritizes some mechanisms over others.

In this paper, we examine the role that human rights advocacy plays in the onset of transitional …

The 'Nayirah' Effect: The Role Of Target States’ Human Rights Violations And Victims’ Emotive Images In War Support, Joseph Braun, Kiyoung Chang

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

When a target state violates human rights, how does the identity of the victims and the presence of emotive imagery affect the level of public support for interventionist war? How does the perceived race and gender of victims affect this relationship? We employ a survey experiment to study whether and when information about a target state’s human rights violations affects public attitudes toward the use of force. Specifically, we manipulate a fictional victim’s race (light-skinned vs. dark-skinned) and gender (male vs. female), and explore how these variations affect support for interventionist war. In our experiment, we find that war support …

Participatory Community Action Research In Homeless Shelters: Utilization Of Service-Learning Pedagogy In Research And Advocacy, Roger N. Reeb, Charles Hunt, Sara Wetter, Cassandra Hartman

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Homelessness will be framed as a human rights issue, with reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (e.g., Articles 25 and 27).

A participatory action research project (sustained by service-learning pedagogy) in homeless shelters will be described. In the shelters, we implement Behavioral Activation, which is a strategy to (a) transform the shelter environment; (b) empower shelter guests; (c) enhance their coping; and (d) expand their opportunities for overcoming obstacles associated with homelessness. We will present both quantitative outcomes (using validated psychometric measures) and qualitative outcomes (examining written comments of guests using grounded theory methodology) for shelter guests, including …

Multi-Method Research In Partnership With Myanmar Refugee Women In Dallas, Texas: Understanding How Ethnic Diversity Influences The Design And Development Of A Resettlement Community Center, Chie Noyori Corbett, David Moxley

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Founded in 2015, the Myanmar Women's Research Project (MWRP) incorporates multiple participatory methods to help refugee women from Myanmar/Burma conceive of, conceptualize, develop, and sustain a community center devoted to resettlement. The project recognizes the multiple ethnicities and religious groups composing the Myanmar community and is committed to multi-ethnic participation of Myanmar women who form a community with considerable need for resettlement assistance.

Indeed, refugees from Myanmar are some of the most vulnerable in the United States, and they face numerous challenges in accommodating American culture. The city of Dallas hosts one of the largest Myanmar communities in the United …

Social Media Advocacy, Jennifer G. Langton, Ashtyn B. Bush, Samantha M. Stacy, Kaitlyn C. Howard, Kelly J. Schaffter

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

Our research project’s purpose is to inform the local community on the ethics and effectiveness as well as the exploitive power of using social media to promote international and domestic causes. We will educate the public and professionals on the responsible use of social media in advocacy and the consequences of its misuse. We will achieve this goal by researching social media movements and their lasting effects in academic journals and major news outlets. We will then share these findings in a presentation, educating our audience and providing them with the knowledge necessary for responsible use. The presentation will compare, …