Exploring Black Girls' Recommendations for Healthy Lifestyle Interventions to Address Obesity.

Objective This mixed-methods study investigated Black girls' (N = 15) definitions of health and reports on socio-ecological factors that influenced health attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Participants were surveyed about their emotional health, body image, experiences of discrimination, and eating patterns. Methods Directed content analysis was used to identify themes, categories, and capture the depth of information conveyed. The study also used the Nominal Group Technique to elicit recommendations about intervention content, structure, and facilitation of a healthy lifestyle program targeting Black girls. Participants represented various ethnic backgrounds, ranged in age from 14 to 17 years (M = 16), and were in the ninth and 10th grades. Participants also represented a specific sample of Black adolescent girls who are medically categorized as obese. Results Findings indicated that Black girls use an intersectional (race-gender) lens to frame their definitions of health and inform health-related behaviors. Recommendations for obesity interventions targeting Black girls include leveraging time during school to deliver services, intentional selection of program facilitators to include race-gender similarities, and professionals trained to work with adolescents. Additionally, considerations for provider-patient interactions include the use of nonstigmatizing language and direct communication. Conclusion Findings serve to address the paucity of culturally responsive interventions targeting Black girls' health. Implications include enhancement of program retention and sustained engagement to facilitate effective treatment outcomes and address the disparity in the prevalence of obesity. In doing so, there is a potential to reduce health disparities associated with increased weight as Black girls' transition into adulthood.

African American emerging adults' experiences with racial discrimination and drinking habits: The moderating roles of perceived stress.

OBJECTIVES: Despite the abundance of research aimed at quantifying the impact of racism on the mental and physical health of African Americans, results remain inconclusive largely because of challenges with operationalization, as well as conflation with the concept of racial discrimination, which may be more readily assessed. The purpose of the current study was to: (a) determine whether racial discrimination had an impact on the degree of alcohol use and binge drinking among African American emerging adults, and if so, (b) determine whether perceived stress linked to racially discriminatory experiences moderated these associations. METHOD: We used a series of hierarchical regressions to examine associations among racial discrimination, perceived stress, and degree of alcohol consumption in a sample of African American emerging adults in the southeast (n = 235). RESULTS: We found that the association between racial discrimination and degree of alcohol consumption (alcohol use and binge drinking) was strongest among individuals who reported greater levels of perceived stress linked to racial discrimination experiences. This association, however, was not significant for individuals who reported lower levels of perceived stress in response to racial discrimination. CONCLUSIONS: African Americans who experience a high degree of perceived stress in response to experiences with racial discrimination may be at greater risk for problem drinking than their peers with less perceived stress. These findings highlight the need for novel intervention efforts aimed at mitigating the effects of stress and racial discrimination on health outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Discrimination and Depressive Symptoms Among Black American Men: Moderated-Mediation Effects of Ethnicity and Self-Esteem.

Discrimination is related to depression and poor self-esteem among Black men. Poorer self-esteem is also associated with depression. However, there is limited research identifying how self-esteem may mediate the associations between discrimination and depressive symptoms for disparate ethnic groups of Black men. The purpose of this study was to examine ethnic groups as a moderator of the mediating effects of self-esteem on the relationship between discrimination and depressive symptoms among a nationally representative sample of African American (n = 1201) and Afro-Caribbean American men (n = 545) in the National Survey of American Life. Due to cultural socialization differences, we hypothesized that self-esteem would mediate the associations between discrimination and depressive symptoms only for African American men, but not Afro-Caribbean American men. Moderated-mediation regression analyses indicated that the conditional indirect effects of discrimination on depressive symptoms through self-esteem were significant for African American men, but not for Afro-Caribbean men. Our results highlight important ethnic differences among Black men.

Dr. Janet E. Helms: Envisioning and creating a more humane psychological science, theory, and practice.

Dr. Janet E. Helms's use of psychological science to engage the field of psychology in radical progressive debates about race and identity is unprecedented. Her scholarship transformed prevailing paradigms in identity development theory and cognitive ability testing in psychology, to name a few. However, mainstream psychology often ignores, dismisses, and minimizes the importance of Dr. Helms's scientific contributions. Despite the numerous systemic barriers she encounters as a Black woman in psychology, Dr. Helms has persisted and made immeasurable contributions to the field and society. The intellectual gifts she has provided have shaped psychology for decades and will undoubtedly continue to do so for centuries to come. This article aims to provide an overview of Dr. Helms's lifetime contributions to psychology and the social sciences. To achieve this goal, we provide a brief narrative of Dr. Helms's life as a prelude to describing her foundational contributions to psychological science and practice in four domains, including (a) racial identity theories, (b) racially conscious and culturally responsive praxis, (c) womanist identity, and (d) racial biases in cognitive ability tests and measurement. The article concludes with a summary of Dr. Helms's legacy as an exceptional psychologist who offers the quintessential blueprint for envisioning and creating a more humane psychological science, theory, and practice anchored in liberation for all. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).