Equipping Youth to Advocate for Health Resources and Access

POLICY

Equipping Youth to Advocate for Health Resources and Access

Building power for our future leaders is essential to inform best practices and build a healthier future. We engage young people as health advocates to speak up for communities and change systems.

Overview

Young advocates and organizers have always been crucial to improving health and well-being in communities, through speaking up and getting involved in issues that matter most to them. For more than a century, Black youth activism has led to social changes—fighting against systemic racism in every corner of American society. When young advocates use their voice, time, and talents to make a difference, they build movements and impact policies and practices close to their homes and across the world.

We honor the lived experience, perspectives, and stories that youth bring to the work to improve health in Black communities. By building power for future Black leaders, we build a healthier future for everyone.

Our Initiatives and Impact

Youth Advocacy Training Initiative

Our youth advocacy training initiative is equipping youth (13 – 24 years old) to become the next generation of health justice advocates and help address policies that impact health in Black communities. Working with community partners, we identify youth who are interested in advocacy work and invite them to participate in our standardized training program. Youth receive experiential learning opportunities and with wraparound support, get real-time advice and mentorship as they implement advocacy campaigns and efforts on issues that matter to them.

Youth Influencing Food Marketing and Purchasing

As part of our multi-pronged approach to improving health outcomes in Black communities, we seek to engage youth in understanding how product marketing and availability, as well as how people’s built, social, and cultural environments influence preferences and buying decisions.

SHIFT (Shaping Our Health by Influencing Food Trends) Demand

From 2007 through 2015, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, we examined the relationship of food and beverage advertisement in Black communities and food purchasing patterns. This project sought to understand how targeted marketing and product availability influenced consumer preference and buying decisions, and to explore how a community-led social media campaign might increase the availability of healthier food options.

Over the duration of the SHIFT Demand project, we utilized a mixed methods approach to understand:

Our team developed an online counter-marketing campaign targeted to Black teenagers to encourage teens to get engaged and advocate for greater access to healthy food options in their communities.

Operation Good Food and Beverages (OGF&B)

OGF&B equips students to engage with their community against targeted food marketing through social media advocacy and community events.

The OGF&B initiative was developed with youth leadership from HeartSmilesMD, an enrichment and leadership development program serving youth in Baltimore’s most underserved communities.

To get the word out, OGF&B launched a petition and social media campaign targeted at the National Restaurant Association, encouraging restaurants to put healthy meals on menus, then advertise and promote them, especially in restaurants that are popular with Black youth up to age 18.

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RESEARCH

Informing and Influencing Research for Black Americans

PRACTICE

Designing Healthy Places and Socially Connected Communities

PRACTICE

Connecting Local Communities to Trusted Health Resources

POLICY

Aligning National Black Organizations to Advance Policy Agenda

Young adulthood is a period of high risk for excessive weight gain and development of obesity due to pregnancy and postpartum weight retention. Women often face multiple responsibilities which prevent their participation in lifestyle interventions, increasing health inequities among women of color that contribute to obesity disparities. This presentation will describe lessons learned from a longstanding academic research partnership with a national home visiting organization that offers a model for reaching women and achieving real world lifestyle change.

One major contributor to excess weight gain is the high intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). Increasing access to water and other healthy beverages is one viable strategy to reduce excess weight gain. Nationally, in 2012, 26% of adults reported consuming sugar-sweetened beverages (e.g., regular soda, fruit drinks, or both) ≥1 times daily. In 2014, consumption of SSBs at least once per day was highest among Black American adults aged 20-39 (77%), those of parenting age. Black youth have significantly higher total beverage consumption from soft drinks (30%) as compared with other children (as low as 9%). For all of these reasons, promoting healthy beverages throughout childhood and adolescence is a public health concern. This webinar aims to describe the national recommendations and resources for healthy beverage consumption among Black youth. Participants will: understand the effects on sugar-sweetened beverages on the health of Black youth, identify best practice recommendations to promote healthy beverages to Black youth, identify credible sources of information to promote healthy beverage consumption, and assess alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages to consume healthy beverages.

Join our network of experts that integrate global perspectives, data and research, and lived experience to create actionable strategies to achieve Black health equity.

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Join us for an eye-opening session that delves into the transformative power of the Citizen/Community Scientist approach in improving community-led research and addressing health disparities. Article 5 of the Council on Black Health’s Black Health Bill of Rights highlights the importance of reclaiming our power and autonomy to transform our health. In this episode, we’ll provide an insightful overview of the Citizen/Community Scientist approach, developed in collaboration with Project Brotherhood. Discover how this approach can revolutionize the recruitment and engagement of diverse populations in the All of Us research program, a groundbreaking NIH-funded initiative involving communities. Find out how the Citizen/Community Scientist approach can impact your own research endeavors and contribute to sustainable solutions for improving health and reducing disparities. Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in the movement for change. Subscribe now and join the conversation!

In this webinar, we dive into the research and experiences of Black Americans who have successfully maintained healthy eating and physical activity behaviors for extended periods of time (more than 6 months). By understanding their strategies, we can develop intervention approaches that effectively promote health and reduce health disparities. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights that can transform the way we approach behavior change. Subscribe now and join the conversation!

Among ethnic groups in the United States, African Americans continue to be among those with notably low life expectancy and high overall rates of chronic illness, including diabetes. It is well documented that diabetes self-management decreases the severity of symptoms, slows the progression of disease trajectory, and increases the quality of life. However, socio-economic factors and the stress of structural racism continue to strongly influence health equity and disease disparities which, in turn, may interfere with self-management. While interventions focused on clinical targets have reduced the overall disease burden, they have failed to eliminate racial and geographic disparities in diabetes. To that end, there is an urgent need for sustainable interventions devoted to increasing health equity and the self-management of diabetes in African Americans. Today’s webinar will highlight the successes and challenges of a program of research dedicated to the self-management of diabetes among African Americans — including recruitment and retention — as well as discuss the next steps in practice and research. Subscribe to our channel for similar content!

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly expanded the use of telemedicine, remote diagnosis and treatment of patients using telecommunication technology, for care delivery. Telemedicine has appeared especially promising in the management of chronic diseases, such as type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM), which require consistent monitoring and adjustment to be optimally controlled. This webinar will provide a review of the current state of knowledge regarding the impact of telemedicine on diabetes outcomes and on disparities in diabetes care, identify the current gaps in knowledge with regard to delivery of diabetes care via telemedicine, and discuss barriers to telemedicine that can exacerbate known disparities in diabetes outcomes. Dr. Batch will conclude by discussing opportunities for future research that can inform clinical care and reduce disparities in diabetes.

Despite increased funding allocated for health and physical education (PE) programs through Every Student Succeeds Act, disparities in school-based physical activity programming persist with low-resource schools less likely to offer recess, have a certified PE teacher, or provide after-school sports programming, compared to higher-resource schools. Classroom-based physical activity interventions hold great potential for reducing physical activity disparities at school by providing children with 19 minutes of in-class activity every day (approximately two-thirds of the school-based recommendation of 30 minutes). Yet, low rates of treatment fidelity (the extent to which an intervention is delivered as conceived and planned) have been observed in low-resource schools, resulting in children accumulating less than 5 minutes of daily in-class activity. There is a critical need to develop classroom-based physical activity interventions that are tailored to context, to maximize fidelity and motivate behavior change in students toward increased activity levels. In the absence of such tailored programs, classroom-based interventions have the potential to perpetuate existing disparities in physical activity participation among low-income children. Today’s webinar will highlight the successes of a school-based physical activity program tailored for implementation in low-resource settings and how this same program was adapted for dissemination in the home environment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

African diaspora dance in public health and health care is positioned to have far-reaching implications as a tool for achieving health equity. This webinar will present African diaspora dance as a cultural determinant of health and discuss the role of African diaspora dancers as cultural bearers and trusted messengers for health promotion in the Black community. Subscribe to our channel for similar content!

Disparities in obesity prevalence and weight loss treatment affecting Black women persist. This is a barrier to improving health risks and outcomes in weight-related conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Black women’s provision of care to family and non-kin networks may be a barrier to achieving weight control. Examining the multiple caregiver roles, a sociocultural factor among Black women engaged in a behavioral weight loss intervention may indicate the role of such context on behavior change and weight. In this talk, Dr. Blackman Carr will discuss her work and insights surrounding Black women’s caregiving on dietary and physical activity behaviors and weight while pursuing weight loss. The webinar will also indicate potential directions for future efforts to address obesity and improve weight loss in treatment-seeking Black women. Subscribe to our channel for similar content!

The limited success in the prevention of diabetes and other chronic diseases and the related efforts to achieve health equity reflects a lack of knowledge about which programs and policies can effectively reach underserved racial/ethnic minority and low-resource populations. Implementation of programs and policies outside of health care settings (i.e., in community settings such as schools and childcare centers, worksites, social service organizations, and religious organizations) has high potential in this respect. However, unique challenges arise from the fact that primary missions, capacity, cultures, and values in such settings are not centered on physical health or health services delivery. This webinar will present a review of implementation research in community settings and highlight lessons learned to guide future research and practice in diverse settings and geographies.

Racial disparities in weight status during the childbearing window have long-lasting implications for racial disparities in obesity over the life course. Neighborhood context is a key multilevel determinant of maternal weight status during and after childbearing. However, the multidimensional nature of neighborhood contexts is often not captured in a comprehensive way. Doing so would facilitate a more complex understanding of how neighborhoods impact on health beyond simple additive accumulations of individual factors across the social, physical, and built environment. It can also improve insight into how neighborhoods can be leveraged to enhance the effectiveness of interventions targeting maternal weight status. This talk will explore insights from my research using composite measures of neighborhood opportunity access in relation to racial/ethnic disparities in key weight-related maternal health outcomes, including gestational weight gain and postpartum weight retention. The talk will conclude by proposing systems-based methods as a next step in continuing to capture the complex and dynamic aspects of neighborhood context in ways that can facilitate translation of evidence into action to improve Black maternal health.

Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in diabetes-related outcomes persist. There is a need for effective interventions that facilitate diabetes self-management while also acknowledging the social context in which patients are trying to self-manage. We will present results from our NIDDK-funded two-year randomized pilot trial, Bridge to Health/Puente a la Salud, as well as lessons learned.

Preschool-age children from low socioeconomic environments tend to have low physical activity levels. In the US, approximately 61% of preschool-age children spend most of their day in non-parental childcare settings such as preschool centers, making this an ideal setting to intervene on their physical activity levels. A significant proportion of physical activity interventions targeting preschool centers have been stand-alone programs and have been implemented by trained external staff, which is not a viable model. For a physical activity program to be viable and sustainable, the program must be integrated into the preschool day and implemented by preschool teachers. This presentation will describe the characteristics of successful preschool-based physical activity interventions. The majority of the presentation will focus on lessons learned from implementing teacher-led physical activity interventions in preschool-age children from low socioeconomic environments.

The ability to address the high rates of childhood obesity in black communities will depend in part on how healthful, lower-calorie foods are priced relative to less healthful, higher-calorie alternatives. This webinar will highlight AACORN’s recently published research with Black Americans from four cities on how food prices impact what foods they buy.

African-American women are disproportionately affected with a sedentary lifestyle, high body weight, and increased risk for stress-related chronic diseases. Yoga can be an effective strategy to address adverse health outcomes by decreasing sedentary behavior and stress; however little research has been conducted to explore its effect in African-American women. This presentation will review the existing literature on the benefits of yoga and explore the potential of yoga to address health outcomes in African-American women.

Dr. Singleton will present current evidence on the feasibility and acceptability of several local and national strategies to expand healthy food retail in low-income black communities. Furthermore, she will discuss findings from studies that evaluated the impact of these strategies on healthy food availability, food purchasing behavior, diet, and health. Dr. Singleton is an assistant professor of community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research examines relationships between healthy food retail, food purchasing, and dietary intake in low-income communities.

Black women have a higher prevalence of obesity than any other major demographic group in the United States. Additionally, black women tend to lose less weight than their white counterparts when engaging in obesity treatment regardless of modality. Reasons for differences in obesity prevalence and weight loss outcomes are not fully understood and warrant further exploration. This presentation will explore psychological factors that are associated with weight management among black women in the Deep South with a particular focus on the roles of stress and depression in obesity and obesity-related health outcomes.

There is a high prevalence of obesity among African American adults in the US population. While obesity treatment is generally challenging, African Americans may face additional challenges in pursuit of effective treatment options. This presentation will review what we know about the effectiveness of obesity treatment and its impact on associated outcomes in African Americans.

This presentation will explore the state of the literature on diabetes prevention and weight loss interventions for African American populations. It will also discuss two models of diabetes prevention translation interventions aimed at Black and Latino men and participants receiving services from Food Banks.

The prevalence of obesity in the United States has been steadily increasing over the last few decades. Black women have a high prevalence of obesity and severe obesity. An individual’s perception of body size might differ based on what is thought to be “normal” weight in their reference group or sociocultural context and limit weight control motivations or success. This webinar will share findings from a literature review focused on examining the significance of the association between body image and obesity in Black women. The presentation will identify cultural influences, address salient themes, highlight gaps in the literature, and discuss the importance of incorporating body image issues in public health solutions for prevention and control of obesity and related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes.

Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are leading causes of death for Black men that have been linked with obesity and obesogenic behaviors such as unhealthy eating, sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, sedentary behavior and physical inactivity. Strategies to address obesity among Black Americans regularly enroll more women than men and few rigorously designed studies have identified healthy strategies to promote weight management, control or loss in Black men. During this webinar, Dr. Griffith will describe some of the challenges with how health researchers and practitioners frame Black men’s chronic disease risk, motivate Black men to engage in healthier behavior, and implement interventions to address obesity, diabetes and related health issues. He will discuss some promising qualitative, quantitative and intervention research and lessons learned that suggest new strategies to promote healthy weight loss among Black men.

The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) provided strong evidence that modest weight loss could reduce the onset of diabetes by half, among persons at high risk for diabetes. In DPP and other intense behavioral weight loss interventions Black participants lose clinically significant amounts of weight, but among Black women, weight loss outcomes are generally among the lowest. This webinar will present research summarizing the weight loss outcomes of Black Americans (mainly women) participating in trials of DPP adaptations and then highlight more recent studies that suggest new approaches to designing behavioral weight loss approaches for Black Americans that show promise in improving observed weight loss outcomes.

This presentation will illuminate and discuss assumptions associated with faith-oriented interventions that can be incommensurate with the theological and operational contexts of churches and other faith institutions. Faith settings are logical as potential venues for lifestyle change interventions related to weight management and diabetes control in black communities. Addressing these and other assumptions can lead to improvements in intervention effectiveness, uptake, and sustainability.

Highlights AACORN research that explored perceptions of targeted food and beverage marketing practices among food retailers and policymakers serving Black communities. Interviews were conducted in Chicago, IL and Birmingham, AL. Presenters will highlight insights from these key decision makers and discuss implications of the study results for efforts to improve the healthfulness of food marketed to Black Americans.

The benefits of physical activity for preventing and treating chronic diseases, including diabetes, are well established. Self-report instruments suggest that African Americans engage in less leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) than other population subgroups; however, objectively measured physical activity suggests that African Americans may be more active, overall. During this webinar we will discuss differences in physical activity patterns obtained from self-report and objective measures of physical activity, and the impact of these assessments on public health recommendations and campaigns. We will also describe specific benefits of LTPA and efforts to address disparities in LTPA in African American populations.