Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Centering Communities Of Color In The Modernization Of A Public Health Survey System: Lessons From Oregon, Daniel F. López-Cevallos, Kusuma Madamala, Mira Mohsini, Andres Lopez, Roberta Hunte, Ryan Petteway, Tim Holbert

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Context: Public health survey systems are tools for informing public health programming and policy at the national, state, and local levels. Among the challenges states face with these kinds of surveys include concerns about the representativeness of communities of color and lack of community engagement in survey design, analysis, and interpretation of results or dissemination, which raises questions about their integrity and relevance.

Approach: Using a data equity framework (rooted in antiracism and intersectionality), the purpose of this project was to describe a formative participatory assessment approach to address challenges in Oregon Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and Student …

The Impact Of Sars-Cov-2 On The Consolidated Meatpacking System In The United States, Judith R. Solomon

Anthós

The Sars-Cov-2 virus has had a particularly intense impact on the meatpacking industry in the United States. In this paper I provide a brief introduction to the social, economic, and political realities that lead to mass deaths of meatpacking workers from COVID, and the impact of a consolidated meatpacking system on disease mitigation. These workers are considered expendable due to a lack of power.

The Association Of Patient-Provider Language Concordance With Healthcare Comprehension Among Latino/As In Oregon, Grace Parra

University Honors Theses

Background: The purpose of this study is to describe the need and preferences among Mexican-origin Latinos in Oregon for language-concordant healthcare providers. We hypothesize that the presence of a language concordant provider is associated with greater health care comprehension.

Methods: This is a cross sectional study in collaboration with the General Consulate of Mexico. We developed a 20-item survey that includes questions about socio-demographics, a validated language-based acculturation scale, and questions regarding language concordant care experience and preferences used in previous studies. We are recruiting at the Mexican Consulate 500 Latino/as ages 18 or older who had a healthcare visit …

The Impact Of Period Poverty On Low-Income Adolescents In The United States, Makayla Olson

University Honors Theses

Period poverty is an issue that impacts menstruators globally. This creates a significant health disparity for menstruators, including difficulties accessing menstrual products, inadequate menstrual and puberty health education, and shame and stigma that come from societal misunderstandings and misinformation regarding menstruation. This paper examines the effects of period poverty on low-income adolescents in the United States. It looks at the current literature that addresses how the financial and accessibility barriers that cause period poverty, as well as how these causes impact school-aged menstruators. It aims to address the role that schools play in creating safe environments for menstruators, including staff …

Humanity In Trauma, Alyssa K. Thompson

University Honors Theses

The main objective of the literature review is to use the trauma-informed care paradigm to argue that the current implementation of trauma-informed care reinforces hierarchies of harm, leading to feelings of moral obligation and moral injury while perpetuating othering. This literature review criticizes trauma-informed care, emphasizing lived experiences against the characteristics trauma-informed care aspires to reflect. The review centers on the broad themes of understanding, universality, and acceptance of the present trauma-informed care paradigm. The critique comes from the silently excluded group of healthcare workers, with a personal perspective from a professional who worked in an urban hospital emergency department …

Paperwork, Paradox, And Prn: Psychotropic Medication Deficiencies In Assisted Living, Sarah Dys, Paula Carder

Institute on Aging Publications

Individual state approaches to assisted living/residential care (AL/RC) licensing and oversight in the United States result in different practice standards and requirements, including psychotropic medication use. We examined 170 psychotropic medication deficiency citations issued to 152 Oregon AL/RC settings from 2015 to 2019. Applied thematic analysis resulted in the following themes: (1) documentation issues are primarily responsible for noncompliance, (2) unclear parameters place direct care workers in a role paradox, and (3) there is a persistent disconnect about when to seek qualified expertise before requesting psychotropic medications. AL/RC-specific mechanisms for medication prescription and administration are necessary to improve the structure …

Beyond The Bmi: Expanding Quantitative Methods To Study Health For All Bodies, Kieran Chase, Daniel Oron

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

The public health field is beginning to reckon with its role in perpetuating and reinforcing systemic anti-fatness. Emerging evidence for the devastating health impacts of stigma call into question decades of research and policy that labels the size of people’s bodies as diseased. However, even as we acknowledge the harmful effects of stigma, the field is materially and institutionally invested in a health paradigm that centers weight loss and size-related proxies for health, such as the BMI. Public health scholars interested in questions related to nutrition, chronic disease, and exercise must begin to expand their research focus to imagine non-stigmatizing …

(Un)Weighted Assumptions: Anti-Fatness & Health, Kieran Chase, Nell Carpenter, Madysen Schreiber

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

This lecture/discussion session aims to expand and add nuance to public health students’, professors’, and practitioners’ understanding of the interplay between body size and health. We will begin by naming and challenging common assumptions about the relationship between bodyweight and health outcomes. We will then argue for the consideration of weight-related stigma as a Fundamental Cause of Disease as defined by Phelan and Link, and for institutionally embedded anti-fat bias at the policy level (e.g., insurance policy, medical equipment) as a cause of population health inequity as defined in Whitehead’s Health Equity Framework. We offer these frameworks in contrast to, …

Determinants Of Modern Contraceptive Use Among Young Women In Ghana: A Mixed-Methods Study Design, Adjoa N. Manu

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Background: Only 20% of sexually active women aged 15-24 in Ghana used contraception during their last sexual intercourse. Young women are highly exposed to the risks associated with having unprotected sexual intercourse, such as unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Objective: To use an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to examine the determinants of modern contraceptive use among young women in Ghana using population-based data and identify the types of contraceptive methods the population know and use.

QUAN Design: Analysis of the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey data, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey.

QUAN Findings: The male …

Investing In Family Planning, Education, And Empowering Of Women And Girls To Mitigate The Impact Of Climate Change: An Exemplary Case Of Rwanda., Adjoa N. Manu

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Countries where population growth is high are often highly impacted by the climate crisis despite not being a significant contributor to historical greenhouse gas emissions. This has created a global inequality in that countries with poorly developed infrastructure are 15 times more likely to have deaths due to climate related disasters such as floods, droughts, and storms compared to wealthy countries that can better protect against similar events. While the climate crisis impacts everyone, women and girls are at a higher risk because of their unique health needs and roles in the community. The effects of climate change can be …

Impact Of Industrial Disasters On The Mental Health Of Vietnamese Americans On The Gulf Coast, Vivian L. Duong

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

An explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig caused 200 million gallons of crude oil to spill on the Gulf Coast over a five-month span. About 16,000 miles of coastline, ecosystem and marine life along Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas were contaminated. This disaster and the recovery process caused social, financial, and ecological shocks, resulting in adverse psychosocial and physical health outcomes, health disparities, and socioeconomic inequality. Among the oil spill's most affected and vulnerable populations are the Vietnamese American communities that settled on the Gulf Coast after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The plight of …

Homelessness, Water Access, And Environmental Justice In An Urban Environment, Alicia Gamble

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Only in recent years has houselessness been viewed as an environmental justice issue, and little is understood about the environmental injustices of water insecurity among unhoused individuals, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to understand the environmental injustices (i.e., distributive, procedural, and recognition) of the water insecurity process using the cause-response-effect theoretical model, unhoused participants living near services were interviewed in Portland, Oregon about their lived experiences gaining access to water, the barriers they encounter when trying to access water, and the impacts that result from these barriers. Results revealed that COVID-19 was a barrier to water access and …

The People’S Social Epi Project: Pdx With Ryan Petteway, Ryan J. Petteway

PDXPLORES Podcast

In this episode of PDXPLORES, Ryan J. Petteway, Associate Professor at the Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University School of Public Health, discusses the research behind The People's Social Epi Project: PDX. Providing a counternarrative to the settler-colonial and racial capitalist practices of traditional epidemiological research on health inequities, Petteway's PSEP: PDX initiative is a portfolio of three projects centering around youth-led participatory research, music, and poetry. PSEP: PDX seeks to "center the margins'' to advance health and epistemic justice.

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Conspiracy Theories And Ebola: Lessons Learned Important For Future Pandemics, Shawn C. Smallman

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The public health campaign against Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo faced serious challenges, some due to conspiracy theories and denial. These beliefs were so powerful that they even caused repeated attacks upon health care providers and medical centers. These conspiracy theories were nothing new, as they are a common feature of all frightening epidemics, such as HIV and COVID-19. These narratives also circulated during the 2015 West African Ebola outbreak. Addressing conspiracy theories during an epidemic requires a coordinated campaign involving not only local leaders but also the cooperation of social media organizations