People Of Color Communities Research Articles

Ethically Responsible Participant Selection in Research: A Viewpoint.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the profession of speech and hearing sciences. However, there exist significant discrepancies between the demographics of our members and the populations served. These discrepancies extend to the participants included within our research publications. This article addresses participant selection when conducting research investigations. First, we draw attention to standards of conduct that are present within and outside the field. Second, we highlight inequities that exist. We explore a case study as an example. Finally, we offer suggestions to help rectify the problem. Inequities at the level of participants' selection result in discrepant access to clinical services and evidence-based research for multilingual individuals; neurodiverse individuals; and Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. ASHA and researchers alike can show commitment to DEI by addressing this problem from multiple approaches.

Moving From Transactional to Relational: How Funders Can Work in Partnership With Black, Indigenous and People of Color Communities

Moving From Transactional to Relational: How Funders Can Work in Partnership With Black, Indigenous and People of Color Communities

Moving From Transactional to Relational: How Funders Can Work in Partnership With Black, Indigenous and People of Color Communities

Abstract: Background: The Racial Equity Coalition (REC) formed to address persistent educational disparities. The coalition was composed of 14 Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) organizations that provide culturally integrative youth services. Objectives: REC, with support from United Way of King County, engaged in participatory research to identify commonalities and shared struggles to inform collective action. Participatory research aligns with REC's commitment to equitable participatory processes. This article focuses on REC's experiences with funders. The objective was to understand what creates positive and challenging experiences with funders, and to identify recommendations for funders to become more culturally responsive. Methods: A research committee was formed including representatives of nine REC organizations and United Way of King County staff. The committee conducted interviews with each of the 14 REC organizations and conducted thematic analysis of interview transcripts. Through participatory analysis, the committee drafted narratives that were further refined through a series of research retreats attended by all REC organizations. Results: Recommendations were to incentivize collaboration, listen to communities to create culturally responsive definitions of success and measurement strategies, arrive at mutually agreed upon approaches with organizations, honor the connections BIPOC organizations have with their communities, and provide unrestricted funding to allow BIPOC organizations greater agency. Conclusions: A major challenge for BIPOC organizations is navigating White dominant culture that too often shows up in funding requirements. Having to fit dominant culture standards stifles BIPOC organizations' abilities to meet community needs and the responsiveness of their approaches. REC identified recommendations for funders to be more culturally responsive and community centered.

The Emergence of Environmental Justice in General Plans: Lessons From California's Senate Bill 1000

At the center of demands for cleaner air, water, and soil in communities disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards, are often cities and counties. Local jurisdictions are uniquely positioned to shape policies and engage with residents in processes that can transform land-use patterns that have negatively impacted low-income, people of color communities. This study assesses the approaches to environmental justice (EJ) that California local jurisdictions with high levels of cumulative environmental health impact are developing in their general plans, under Senate Bill 1000. Results indicate positive outcomes such as the establishment of EJ advisory committees. However, findings also underscore challenges such as a lack of political support from elected officials and minimal resources to implement measures. We find that most general plans include EJ considerations, however, there are concerns regarding how their implementation will unfold. We provide practice-based recommendations to assist planners across the nation working to develop effective EJ considerations.

Health inequities and social determinants of health in refugee and immigrant communities.

This article evaluates and elucidates the intersections across social and economic determinants of health and social structures that maintain current inequities and structural violence with a focus on the impact on imMigrants (immigrants and migrants), refugees, and those who remain invisible (e.g., people without immigration status who reside in the United States) from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Psychology has a history of treating individuals and families without adequately considering how trauma is cyclically and generationally maintained by structural violence, inequitable resources, and access to services. The field has not fully developed collaboration within an interdisciplinary framework or learning from best practices through international/global partnerships. Psychology has also been inattentive to the impact of structural violence prominent in impoverished communities. This structural harm has taken the form of the criminalization of imMigrants and refugees through detention, incarceration, and asylum citizenship processes. Most recently, the simultaneous occurrence of multiple catastrophic events, such as COVID-19, political polarization and unrest, police violence, and acceleration of climate change, has created a hypercomplex emergency for marginalized and vulnerable groups. We advance a framework that psychologists can use to inform, guide, and integrate their work. The foundation of this framework is select United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to address health inequities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Our Time: A Curriculum that is up to the Task.

There is current heightened public consciousness of the intersecting challenges of social and racial injustice, other forms of inequity, and the climate and biodiversity crisis. We examine how these current realities influence how we engage as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Program (MBP) teachers and researchers. Although Kabat-Zinn developed MBSR as a vehicle to enable engagement with both the individual and the collective drivers of distress and flourishing, predominant research and practice trends within the MBP field have prioritised individual wellbeing, and have not been accessible to the full societal demographic. Furthermore, there is increasing recognition that the systemic social inequities that influence access to public services have not been addressed in the MBP field. In response, there is now an increasing trend exploring how MBP participation can influence 'bigger than self' concerns, with research, practice and theory suggesting that the inner personal transformation that mindfulness practice enables, supports individuals to compassionately reconnect to self, other and the natural world in ways that foster prosocial behaviour change, and enables awareness building of personal bias and conditioning. In this paper we present perspectives on ways of both retaining fidelity to the existing MBSR program, and simultaneously embracing anti-oppression teaching methods and content, and an inclusive recognition of the micro, meso and macro causes and conditions that drive distress and flourishing. We are a group of racially diverse MBP teachers and trainers from both sides of the Atlantic, who are engaged in training initiatives with people from Black, Latinex, Indigenous, Asian, and People of Color communities.

EMANCIPATORY VISIONS: USING VISUAL METHODS TO CO-CONSTRUCT KNOWLEDGE WITH OLDER ADULTS

Abstract Research is a political activity. Researchers are responsible for theories and methods used to explore, explain, or ignore injustices. A need exists for developing new tools and pathways of knowledge based on experiences, language, and intellect of older adults from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. This presentation argues for the utility of visual methods in critical qualitative research as a medium that allows researchers and participants to co-construct knowledge. Lessons learned about implementing projects using visual methods from the intersectional standpoint of the authors – three younger women of color – will be discussed. Promises and complexities of navigating interpersonal dynamics, decolonizing knowledge-production, and scaling visual methods on multiple levels will be elucidated. Collectively, we argue that visual methods are rigorous for subverting power dynamics rooted in extractive research practices, and provide a vehicle for community-engaged participatory action research that has potential to advance social justice in gerontology.

The Role of Policy in Prevention: Protecting People and the Environment

While the role of governments in promoting health policies and regulations to protect and support all its citizens, particularly those more vulnerable, needs to be reaffirmed, the work of non-profit organizations should be highlighted. Nsedu Obot Witherspoon discusses the mission, contributions, and actions of a national non-profit organization–the Children’s Environmental Health Network–that strives to foster equity, protect all children from environmental hazards, and promote safe and healthy environments for children to thrive in. This commitment is challenged by the traditional approach to environmental health laws and regulations that is based on proving harm from environmental hazards, such as carcinogens, before measures are taken to protect all, especially the most vulnerable. The goal of fostering a cancer free society is a collective and shared endeavor, which requires to acknowledge and address the troubling effects of systemic discrimination and racism on low wealth, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

The Movement for Ethnic Studies: A Tool of Resistance and Self-Determination for Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Social work is contending with an increasingly racially and ethnically diverse population and an academic field that is facing mounting pressure to diversify its curriculum to meet the needs of its students and the communities that social workers serve and inhabit. This article draws on the history of ethnic studies and the work that the field has produced to inform and challenge social work to recognize its shortcomings in addressing racial equity and advance the profession to commit to self-determination for all. In particular, the ethnic studies movement gave rise to relevant education reflective of the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Inspired by the canon and ideologies of ethnic studies, we offer recommendations for social work education.

Changes in COVID-19-Associated Deaths During a Year Among Blacks and Hispanics Compared to Whites in the State of Connecticut.

Background With recent COVID-19 vaccination rates relatively high in the USA, the USA still maintains the most documented cases globally,[1] even though COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, and mortality have been declining. However, the health burden has been largely felt in communities involving racial and ethnic minorities. Thus, in order to provide a clearer picture of what is happening in Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities, we examined the racial/ethnic differences of monthly COVID-19 deaths in Connecticut.MethodsThis is an epidemiological study analyzing mortality data from March 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021, obtained from the Connecticut State Department of Public Health. The data include cause of death (COVID-19 death identified by ICD-10 code U071), race/ethnicity (non-Hispanic White (White), non-Hispanic Black (Black), and Hispanic), sex, and age. Both crude and age-adjusted rates were reported by racial/ethnic groups. To compare age-adjusted rates between racial groups, with estimated age-adjusted death counts as outcomes, between-racial group rate ratios, 95% confidence intervals, and p values significant at < 0.05 were derived from the Poisson regression model.ResultsFrom March 2020 to May 2020 (wave 1) of COVID-19 cases, the COVID-19-related mortality rates were the highest for all three race groups (Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics) with statistical group differences (p < 0.05). Blacks had the highest rates of deaths followed by Hispanics and then Whites. Further, more Whites died in a nursing home when compared to Blacks and Hispanics. From June 2010 to October 2020 (wave 2), COVID-19 mortality declined significantly for all three race groups with no statistical differences between groups. COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes declined for all three racial/ethnic groups. From November 2020 to February 2021 (wave 3), COVID-19 mortality rates were significantly higher compared to wave 2 but lower than wave 1 for all three race groups. The mortality rates for Blacks and Hispanics were higher than Whites. Hispanics had the highest rates of deaths, followed by Blacks, and then Whites (p < 0.05). Whites showed the lowest mortality rates among all three racial/ethnic groups.ConclusionsIn summary, COVID-19 health disparities among Black and Hispanic populations were evident in this study. Blacks and Hispanics had significantly higher mortality rates when compared to Whites. Blacks had the highest mortality rates during wave 1, and in wave 3, Hispanics has the highest mortality rates. Our data are important because they show monthly COVID-19 deaths data by race. Data reported this way gives a better and more accurate understanding of what is really happening in Black, Indigenous, and people of color populations.

A Century Later: Rural Public Health's Enduring Challenges and Opportunities.

The US public health community has demonstrated increasing awareness of rural health disparities in the past several years. Although current interest is high, the topic is not new, and some of the earliest public health literature includes reports on infectious disease and sanitation in rural places. Continuing through the first third of the 20th century, dozens of articles documented rural disparities in infant and maternal mortality, sanitation and water safety, health care access, and among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Current rural research reveals similar challenges, and strategies suggested for addressing rural-urban health disparities 100 years ago resonate today. This article examines rural public health literature from a century ago and its connections to contemporary rural health disparities. We describe parallels between current and historical rural public health challenges and discuss how strategies proposed in the early 20th century may inform current policy and practice. As we explore the new frontier of rural public health, it is critical to consider enduring rural challenges and how to ensure that proposed solutions translate into actual health improvements. (Am J Public Health. 2020;110:1678-1686. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305868).

Connectedness and the Sociopolitical Involvement of Same-gender-loving Black Men

Employing a national sample of over 800 same-gender-loving black men, we explore the relative impact of community-level support/comfort and the importance of sexual orientation and racial identity on two dependent variables—sociopolitical involvement within lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities and sociopolitical involvement within people of color (POC) communities. Findings indicate that feelings of connectedness to LBGT communities is the most important predictor of sociopolitical involvement within both LGBT and POC communities; while, counterintuitively, being comfortable within the LGBT community had a negative impact on the sociopolitical involvement of these men. Further, the impact of the importance of identity was negligible.

Unpacking Civic Engagement: The Sociopolitical Involvement of Same-Gender Loving Black Women

Employing a national sample of over 600 same-gender loving (SGL) Black women, we explore the relative impact of community-level support/comfort and the importance of sexual orientation and racial identity on two dependent variables—sociopolitical involvement within lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities as well as sociopolitical involvement within people of color (POC) communities. Findings indicate that feelings of connectedness to the LGBT community are the most important predictor of sociopolitical involvement within both LGBT and POC communities; while, counterintuitively, being comfortable within the LGBT community had a negative impact. Further, the impact of the importance of identity was negligible.

Disastrous Response to Natural and Man-Made Disasters: An Environmental Justice Analysis Twenty-Five Years after Warren County

I. INTRODUCTION II. STUDIES IN FAILURE: FEDERAL AND STATE RESPONSES TO ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCIES A. Government Response to the PCB Threat in Warren County 1. Hunt's Dump 2. Why Warren County? 3. The Warren County Siting Decision: A Symptom of a Larger Disease B. The Dumping Grounds in a Tennessee Town 1. Why Eno Road? 2. Treatment of the African American Holt Family 3. Treatment of White Families in Dickson County 4. Proximity of the Dickson County Landfill to Elected Officials' Homes C. Environmental Threats in post-Katrina New Orleans 1. Cleaning Up Toxic Neighborhoods 2. Katrina's Wake: Mountains of Trash, Contaminated Soil, and the Community Response 3. Toxic FEMA Trailers III. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION Historically, people of color communities have borne a disproportionate burden of pollution from landfills, garbage dumps, incinerators, smelters, sewage treatment plants, chemical industries, and a host of other polluting facilities. Many dirty industries have followed the path of least resistance, allowing low-income and people of color neighborhoods to become the dumping grounds for all kinds of health-threatening operations. (1) This paper provides an analysis of real-life examples of how government response to environmental emergencies is endangering the health and safety of vulnerable populations. The paper uses an environmental justice framework to examine the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response to toxic contamination and man-made disasters in three communities: Warren County, North Carolina, Dickson, Tennessee, and post-Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana. For decades, hundreds of communities from New York to Alaska have used a variety of tactics to confront environmental injustice. (2) It was not until 1990, however, after extensive prodding from grassroots environmental justice activists, educators, and academics, that the EPA began to take action on environmental justice concerns. (3) In 1992, under the George H. Bush Administration, the EPA produced Environmental Equity: Reducing Risks for All Communities, a report that finally acknowledged the fact that some populations shoulder greater environmental health risks than others. (4) A few years later, in 1994, President William Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. (5) This Order attempted to address environmental injustice within existing federal laws and regulations. Additionally, the Order reinforced existing legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI, which prohibits discriminatory practices in programs receiving federal funds, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law that set policy goals for the protection, maintenance and enhancement of the environment. (6) The Executive Order also called for the federal government to improve methodologies for assessing and mitigating impacts, including health effects from multiple and cumulative exposure and impacts on subsistence fishers and consumers of wild game. Moreover, the Order required the collection of data on low-income and minority populations who may be disproportionately at risk and encouraged participation of the impacted populations in the various phases of assessing impacts--including scoping, data gathering, analysis of alternatives, mitigation, and monitoring. The EPA and FEMA are two of twelve federal agencies covered under the Executive Order. FEMA was founded in 1979 by consolidating the emergency management functions formerly administered by five different agencies. FEMA was an independent agency reporting to the President and was charged with planning for, mitigating, responding to, and recovering from natural and manmade disasters. …

Race and Environmental Justice in Buffalo, NY: A ZIP Code and Historical Analysis of Ecological Hazards

ABSTRACT An analysis of toxic release inventories (TRI) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-regulated facilities in Buffalo, NY, fails to show evidence of environmental racism. Environmental racism is the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on people of color communities (Bryant 1995, 6). The data do indicate some evidence of environmental classism, the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on lower income populations. The absence of environmental racism can be understood as the product of historical residential and labor-market segregation that excluded African Americans from residing in industrialized sections of the city. Institutionalized racism, while acting as a barrier to upward social mobility, has had the effect of insulating large portions of Buffalo's African American population from disproportionate exposure to ecological hazards.

New perspectives on environmental justice: gender, sexuality, and activism

Despite the fact that I have studied environmental justice from a women's-centered perspective for the last twenty years, every page of this book taught me something new. I found it so engaging that I couldn't bear to put it down. --Celene Krauss, professor, women's studies and sociology, Kean University Keeping to its core of the environmental justice movement, where women shape the leadership of the grassroots, New Perspectives on Environmental Justice captures the historical and contemporary roles of gender and sexuality in environmental justice studies. A truly transformative collection whose leading insights every student, teacher, and scholar of environmental justice must confront. --Robert Figueroa, university studies, program coordinator of environmental studies and Latin American studies, Colgate University Women make up the vast majority of activists and organizers of grassroots movements fighting against environmental ills that threaten poor and people of color communities. New Perspectives on Environmental Justice is the first collection of essays that pays tribute to the enormous contributions women have made in these endeavors. The writers offer varied examples of environmental justice issues such as children's environmental-health campaigns, cancer research, AIDS/HIV activism, the Environmental Genome Project, and popular culture, among many others. Each one focuses on gender and sexuality as crucial factors in women's or gay men's activism and applies environmental justice principles to related struggles for sexual justice. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, the contributors offer multiple vantage points on gender, sexuality, and activism. Feminist/womanist impulses shape and sustain environmental justice movements around the world, making an understanding of gender roles and differences crucial for the success of these efforts. Rachel Stein is professor of English and director of women's and multicultural studies at Siena College in New York. She is the author of Shifting the Ground: American Women Writers' Revisions of Nature, Gender and Race, and is coeditor of The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy.

Hazardous Sites and Local Taxes: An Application of Social Cost Theory

Recent studies overwhelmingly conclude that ecological hazards disproportionately impact low income and people of color communities. This article analyzes the association between commercial and industrial taxes and hazardous sites. A statewide analysis using census data, municipal tax data, and hazardous site data shows a bias against lower income communities. The analysis shows that lower income communities receive less compensation per hazardous site. The results indicate that the production of ecological hazards is a political economic process in which compensation for pollution varies by income.

Environmental justice, local knowledge, and risk: the discourse of a community-based cumulative exposure assessment.

While risk assessment continues to drive most environmental management decision-making, its methods and assumptions have been criticized for, among other things, perpetuating environmental injustice. The justice challenges to risk assessment claim that the process ignores the unique and multiple hazards facing low-income and people of color communities and simultaneously excludes the local, non-expert knowledge which could help capture these unique hazards from the assessment discourse. This paper highlights some of these challenges to conventional risk assessment and suggests that traditional models of risk characterization will continue to ignore the environmental justice challenges until cumulative hazards and local knowledge are meaningfully brought into the assessment process. We ask whether a shift from risk to exposure assessment might enable environmental managers to respond to the environmental justice critiques. We review the US EPA's first community-based Cumulative Exposure Project, piloted in Brooklyn, NY, and highlight to what extent this process addressed the risk assessment critiques raised by environmental justice advocates. We suggest that a shift from risk to exposure assessment can provide an opportunity for local knowledge to both improve the technical assessment and its democratic nature and may ultimately allow environmental managers to better address environmental justice concerns in decision-making.