"No Justice, No Peace”: Yard Signs as Public Pedagogy and Community Engagement at the Intersection of Public Health Crises

This paper examines yard signs as a site for public pedagogy that engages two concurrent, and comorbid, public health crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and racism. Specifically, I reflect on how yard signs responding to the George Floyd murder in my own Minneapolis neighborhood exist during a kairotic moment;as myself and my students are increasingly confined to our own homes, and as the boundaries between school and home are blurred, the public health crisis of racism and the specific community response of yard signs present opportunities for examining how these signs can act as entry points into difficult conversations among neighbors, classmates, and colleagues. While such signs are certainly examples of epideictic rhetoric, participating in either "praise or blame,” I suggest that communication teachers can frame them as public pedagogy that "strikes a harmony between learning through public engagement and understanding these public encounters in the space of the classroom” (Holmes, 2016). As such, they can act not only as artifacts of community belonging, but as artifacts to promote reflection, conversation, and inquiry.

Mental Health and Higher Education in Australia

This book addresses a broad range of issues related to mental health in higher education in Australia, with specific reference to student and staff well-being. It examines the challenges of creating and sustaining more resilient cultures within higher education and the community. Showcasing some of Australia's unique experiences, the authors present a multidisciplinary perspective of mental health supports and services relevant to the higher education landscape. This book examines the different ways Australian higher education institutions responded/are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, with reference to domestic and international students. Through the exploration of practice and research, the authors add to the rich discourses on well-being in the higher education. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Corrigendum: Displacement of the Scholar? Participatory Action Research Under COVID-19 (Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, (2022), 6, (762065), 10.3389/fsufs.2022.762065)

In the published article, there was an error in the Funding statement. The funding statement was missing. The correct Funding statement appears below. Copyright © 2023 Auerbach, Muñoz, Affiah, Barrera de la Torre, Börner, Cho, Cofield, DiEnno, Graddy-Lovelace, Klassen, Limeberry, Morse, Natarajan and Walsh.

A Qualitative Analysis of Community Participants' Experiences with a Virtual Interprofessional Team Visit (vIPTV) with Healthcare Students.

Healthcare students must develop essential interprofessional skills to provide efficient, safe, and effective patient-centered care. To ensure students receive the proper training to develop these skills, an interprofessional team visit (IPTV) program was established at a large urban university in 2011. The program involved teams of students from nine disciplines conducting home visits with community participants to provide patient-centered care and educational resources. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the IPTV program transitioned to a virtual delivery first piloted in 2020. The aims of this study were to evaluate the community participants' experiences with virtual IPTV (vIPTV), identify benefits and challenges related to transitioning from in-person to virtual delivery, and utilize participants' feedback to improve the IPTV program. Focus groups with 39 total participants were conducted in seven different sessions during December 2021 and January 2022. Qualitative analysis of the data showed that participants value the IPTV program, had positive experiences with the virtual delivery, and desire personalized interactions. Community participant's feedback can enhance virtual educational experiences for healthcare students' training.

Developing relevant assessments of community-engaged research partnerships: A community-based participatory approach to evaluating clinical and health research study teams.

Background/Objective: In 2017, the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) and community partners in Flint, Michigan collaborated to launch a research funding program and evaluate the dynamics of those research partnerships receiving funding. While validated assessments for community-engaged research (CEnR) partnerships were available, the study team found none sufficiently relevant to conducting CEnR in the context of the work. MICHR faculty and staff along with community partners living and working in Flint used a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to develop and administer a locally relevant assessment of CEnR partnerships that were active in Flint in 2019 and 2021. Methods: Surveys were administered each year to over a dozen partnerships funded by MICHR to evaluate how community and academic partners assessed the dynamics and impact of their study teams over time. Results: The results suggest that partners believed that their partnerships were engaging and highly impactful. Although many substantive differences between community and academic partners' perceptions over time were identified, the most notable regarded the financial management of the partnerships. Conclusion: This work contributes to the field of translational science by evaluating how the financial management of community-engaged health research partnerships in a locally relevant context of Flint can be associated with these teams' scientific productivity and impact with national implications for CEnR. This work presents evaluation methods which can be used by clinical and translational research centers that strive to implement and measure their use of CBPR approaches.

Empowering Youth Vaccine Ambassadors to Promote COVID-19 Vaccination in Local Communities: A 7-Step Approach.

Despite the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for youth since 2021, vaccine hesitancy has resulted in suboptimal uptake. Public health campaigns that empower local youth ambassadors as trusted messengers who share their personal narratives related to getting vaccinated hold promise for promoting COVID-19 vaccination. We used a seven-step approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a youth-led ambassador campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake in communities experiencing COVID-19 disparities in Worcester, MA. The seven steps included (1) engaging with key partners; (2) determining a community of focus; (3) identifying trusted sources; (4) determining campaign components; (5) training the vaccine ambassadors; (6) disseminating the campaign; and (7) evaluating the campaign. We trained nine youth as vaccine ambassadors. Ambassadors were guided through self-reflection of motivations for COVID-19 vaccination and the resulting personal narratives became the campaign messaging. English/Spanish vaccine messages developed by youth ambassadors were disseminated through social media platforms (n = 3), radio (n = 2), local TV (n = 2), flyers (n = 2,086), posters (n = 386), billboards (n = 10), and local bus ads (n = 40). Qualitative youth feedback indicate participation in the campaign was a positive and empowering experience which reinforces the importance of engaging youth in public health messaging. Youth empowerment through personal narratives (and storytelling) holds promise for future public health campaigns.

Epidemiological intelligence community network intervention: a community response for COVID-19 community transmission.

BACKGROUND: Expanding and providing access to early detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) through testing community-based strategies among socially vulnerable communities (SVC) are critical to reducing health disparities. The Epidemiological Intelligence Community Network (EpI-Net) community-based intervention sought to increase coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) testing uptake and prevention practices among SVC in Puerto Rico (PR). We evaluated EpI-Net's community leaders' capacity-building component by assessing pre-post COVID-19 public health workshops' tests' score changes and satisfaction among trained community leaders. METHODS: A total of 24 community leaders from SVC in PR have completed four community workshops. Pre- and post-assessments were completed as part of the health promotors training program to evaluate participants' tests score changes and satisfaction outcomes. RESULTS: Preliminary results showed: (1) high intervention retention levels of community leaders (85.7% acceptance rate); (2) change in post-test scores for community engagement strategies (p = 0.012); (3) change in post-test educational scores in COVID-19 prevention practices (p = 0.014); and (4) a change in scores in public health emergency management strategies (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The overall workshop satisfaction was 99.6%. Community leaders have shown the importance of community capacity building as a key component for intervention feasibility and impact. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Our study was retrospectively registered under the ClinicalTrial.gov ID NCT04910542.

Community action projects: community-engaged quality improvement for medical students.

BACKGROUND: Healthcare Quality Improvement (QI) is an essential skill for medical students to acquire, although there is insufficient empirical research which suggests the best educational methods to do this. This study explored the experiences of medical students participating in two versions of a Community Action Project (CAP) which gave medical students the opportunity to learn QI skills in a community setting. The first version (GPCAP) was pre-pandemic where students identified and delivered QI projects on placement in general practice to improve local population health. The second version (Digi-CAP) ran remotely where students worked on QI projects identified by local voluntary sector organisations focused on local community priorities during COVID-19. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with volunteers from the two cohorts of students who had taken part in quality improvement initiatives. Transcriptions were independently coded by two researchers and analysed through thematic analysis. RESULTS: Sixteen students were interviewed. Whilst students had mixed experiences of completing their CAP, engagement and successful learning was associated with the following themes from the two versions of QI CAP projects: finding a sense of purpose and meaning in QI projects; preparedness for responsibility and service-driven learning; the importance of having supportive partnerships throughout the project duration and making a sustainable difference. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The study provides valuable insights into the design and implementation of these community-based QI projects, which enabled students to learn new and often hard to teach skills, whilst working on projects which have a sustainable impact on local community outcomes.

Evaluation of a Community COVID-19 Vaccine Ambassador Train-the-Trainer Program.

Racially minoritized groups are more likely to experience COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and have lower vaccination rates.  As part of a multi-phase community-engaged project, we developed a train-the-trainer program in response to a needs assessment. "Community vaccine ambassadors" were trained to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. We evaluated the program's feasibility, acceptability, and impact on participant confidence for COVID-19 vaccination conversations. Of the 33 ambassadors trained, 78.8% completed the initial evaluation; nearly all reported gaining knowledge (96.8%) and reported a high confidence with discussing COVID-19 vaccines (93.5%). At two-week follow-up, all respondents reported having a COVID-19 vaccination conversation with someone in their social network, reaching an estimated 134 people. A program that trains community vaccine ambassadors to deliver accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines may be an effective strategy for addressing vaccine hesitancy in racially minoritized communities.

Health promotion in the region of the americas: An educational innovation proposal

"Health Promotion in the Region of the Americas" is a collaboration by a team of experts from 14 countries with the objective to build capabilities for health promotion in the region. The first step of this journey was the creation of a web platform in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic, a context that challenges the revision of development models, relationships, and training. It is a novel work because it implements the principles of an emancipatory health promotion, contributes to capacity building, promotes the construction and democratic access to high-quality information, and formalizes thoughtful spaces and the exchange of experiences. It is a living and dynamic process that is projected from a commitment to participation and co-responsibility for the construction of development models based on real proposals for health and life. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.

The Impact on College Students of Service-Learning in After-School Programs

In the United States, the dearth of quality expanded learning opportunities (ELO), such as afterschool and summer programs, has long been recognized as a national concern (DeKanter et al., 2000). The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this problem, as expanded learning opportunities of all kinds became increasingly limited in spring 2020 (Carver & Doohen, 2021). This research evaluated a new service-learning project, Honors Afterschool Clubs, which allows college students to fill ELO needs by creating and leading afterschool clubs for high-needs, low-income youth. By analyzing college student pre and postexperience surveys, semistructured interviews, and focus groups, the authors evaluated the perceived impacts of this project on college students and their learning. Our preliminary results suggest that in addition to providing an essential service to the community, families, and youth, college participants who lead afterschool clubs perceive an improvement in their self-efficacy, interpersonal skills, and career confidence. © 2023 by the University of Georgia.

Impact of COVID-19 on Local Planning Practices: Focusing on Tactical Urbanism, Slow Streets and Low-Income Communities in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and New York

In the face of lockdowns and social distancing measures promulgated as a result of COVID-19, the effects on local planning are quite diverse. One of the effects is planners' use of tactical urbanism in their efforts to improve public health. With tactical urbanism being characterized as incremental, temporary, flexible, and easily implementable, it is appropriate to ask whether tactical urbanism-based strategies can help make underserved communities more healthy in times of pandemic. This chapter addresses that question by examining several examples of tactical programs called Slow Streets, Open Streets, Safe Streets, Essential Places, etc. These programs provide temporary public spaces in the streets for exercise and interaction. These programs are led by local governmental entities such as transportation departments in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, California;Denver, Colorado;Chicago, Illinois;and New York, New York. We review literature to understand the relevance of those programs to tactical urbanism, and we investigate how effectively they are helping improve health in low-income communities during COVID-19. We use interdisciplinary literature on public health and healthy community design to ground our investigation. Interviews and internet-based sources complement the research. The study outcomes suggest that the pandemic forced planners to act swiftly, but that their tactical programs are limited in improving the health of disadvantaged population because the programs lack comprehensive community engagement and alignment with longer term plans. We end by identifying areas for improvement (governance) in tactical urbanism;and by suggesting future challenges (cultural shifts in urban planning and design practice including denouncement of racialized practices) that, if overcome, could help facilitate the transformation of cities in a healthy, just, and equitable manner. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Community-engaged education in health promotion: Exploring equity and ethical dimensions to problem-solving in community

Given the shifting context related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and shifting community needs and pressures, it is important now more than ever to equip students with the applied knowledge and skills to facilitate community engagement within health promotion. However, traditional models of classroom-based, lecture-style teaching are insufficient in providing students with the tools to holistically navigate 'real-world' settings and solve complex community health challenges. The pandemic has increased the need to develop experiential educational programs that place the community at the forefront to improve health equity. This chapter analyses a transdisciplinary case study, the 'Health Change Lab', and the utilisation of diverse curricular approaches including systems thinking, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives, social innovation theory, human-centred approaches and equity-centred design that emphasize empathy and community participation. Further, a comprehensive and multifaceted framework is presented to examine key questions arising the equity and ethical dimensions of community-engaged education in health promotion. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.

A Global MetaUniversity to Lead by Design to a Sustainable Well-Being Future

The COVID19 pandemic has revealed deep, ingrained problems with higher education, but also opportunities for positive transformation. In the post-COVID world, education at all levels has the chance to become: (1) universally available at low cost;(2) focused on developing competencies, (3) empowering fulfilling lives, not merely job training;and (4) engaged with communities to solve real-world problems. Achieving this will require overcoming the mass production model of higher education by utilizing the full potential of the Internet in creative ways balanced with face-to-face solutions-based integrated learning, research, and outreach agenda. Building a global collaborative consortium of universities and other educational institutions can move this agenda forward. We describe how this "MetaUniversity” could be structured and how it would serve to advance this agenda and lead the way to a sustainable well-being future for humanity and the rest of nature. Copyright © 2021 Costanza, Kubiszewski, Kompas and Sutton.

Managing stormwater in South African neighbourhoods: When engineers and scientists need social science skills to get their jobs done

Stormwater harvesting via managed aquifer recharge in retrofitted infrastructure has been posited as a method for resource augmentation in Cape Town. However, the existing guidelines on stormwater retrofits are technically inclined, occidental, and generally misaligned with the realities and socio-economic contexts of developing nations like South Africa. Water and urban practitioners from developing nations cannot just 'copy and paste' existing guidelines as different socio-economic dimensions and colonial histories typically hinder 'traditional' approaches. This paper assesses how a transdisciplinary team navigated these realities in a case study of a retrofitted pond in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town. A decolonial thinking framework was applied for reflection and thematic content analysis. The framework was used to unpack how the team encountered, addressed, and learned from the challenges during the retrofit process. The research team found that the retrofit process within a context of under-resourced South African communities can be viewed as developmental work with a strong emphasis on continuous community engagement. Thus, it is suggested that in the South African context, water practitioners should consider, at the fore, interaction with local communities, including awareness of racialised histories, to ensure projects are successfully implemented and completed.

COVID-19 and Tourism Geography at a Crossroads: Challenges, Opportunities and Moving Forward

The COVID-19 pandemic had widespread impacts for those engaged in tourism geography education and research. This chapter incorporates diverse international perspectives to consider the ways in which tourism geographers across 11 countries are responding to the challenges - and the opportunities - the pandemic presented in both teaching and research as we move forward in a post-COVID-19 world. Tourism geography educators were quick to adapt to the virtual delivery mode and the dramatic changes that occurred in 2020. However, educators were concerned about their inability to engage students in field experiences. Tourism geography researchers encountered challenges related to research topics, fieldwork, and methodologies. Yet, countless new short- and long-term research topics emerged from the pandemic. Overall, tourism geographers are optimistic that they will have a vital role to play in understanding and shaping patterns of tourism in the future. In particular, these geographers felt that increased engagement with communities is important in working toward a tourism landscape that is more resilient, sustainable, and equitable. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

A cautionary tale: Pandemic survival lessons to sustain teen substance use prevention coalitions

Community coalitions have the potential to improve teen health outcomes by reducing risk and reinforcing protective factors across multiple community systems to mitigate teen pregnancy, violence, suicide, and teen substance use. This prevention work is achieved by developing multipronged action plans and employing community-level interventions to influence policies, systems, and environments in which youth live, learn, and play. In Washington State, nearly 100 coalitions target the complex issue of teen substance use prevention. These coalitions are representative of the diversity of community stakeholders for the prevention of teen substance use. An essential partnership and contractual requirement is a school-coalition agreement to address teen substance use. Working cooperatively, coalitions leverage resources and efforts to affect teen behavioral health by planning, implementing, and evaluating prevention efforts across multiple community systems. Every sector of the community has been disrupted by COVID-19, which has implications for teen substance use prevention. This explanatory mixed-methods phenomenological study explored how the pandemic affected community sectors, what barriers or challenges COVID-19 presented, and what adaptations to programs and service delivery were made to continue teen substance use prevention work. Comprehensive effects across 11 of 12 community sectors were reported, triggering shifts in priorities and negatively affecting morale. Transportation was an identified geographical barrier, while workforce issues were universally challenging regardless of location in the state. Technological infrastructure and digital literacy were highlighted as critical barriers to the successful implementation of coalition prevention interventions and detracted from the day-to-day functioning of coalitions. Deteriorating psychosocial health resulting from sustained uncertainty about the pandemic was compounded by contentious political discourse and division about infection mitigation requirements. Increased use of virtual platforms, new and diversified stakeholder relationships, and innovative community action methods advanced the work of teen substance use prevention despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Community engagement and adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures in Northwest Syria: a systematic review.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the burden on the collapsing health system in northwest Syria. The situation was exacerbated by the low rates of adherence to preventive measures and acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine. In this study, we systematically analysed studies related to Risk Communication and Community Engagement programs, and community awareness in northwest Syria in order to determine the most widespread prevention methods, the community's perspectives and knowledge of epidemic prevention, and the factors that prevent effective community engagement and uptake of COVID-19 prevention precautions in an area that has been suffering from the scourge of conflict for more than ten years. Based on the research findings, low adherence to COVID-19 prevention measures is mainly due to external factors related to socioeconomic status, scarcity of resources, and poor living conditions. Therefore, this study suggested that integrated multi-sectoral humanitarian programs that address these factors holistically are more effective than solely public health interventions in involving the community to become an active part of the Risk Communication and Community Engagement programs and ensuring their effectiveness.

Participatory action research to co-design a culturally appropriate COVID-19 risk communication and community engagement strategy in rural Pakistan.

Background: Community engagement has shown to be fundamental component of the response to previous disease outbreaks. This study aimed co-design and implement a culturally appropriate COVID-19 risk communication and community engagement strategy with a resource-poor rural community in Northwest Pakistan. Methods: Participatory Action Research (PAR) was conducted from January 2021 to March 2022. Five PAR meetings took place with community members (n = 30) to: (1) explore how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the community; (2) identify challenges to limit the spread of the virus; (3) identify and implement solutions to these challenges; and (4) highlight the enablers, challenges and knowledge of the cultural context needed to optimize safety during emergencies. Focus group discussions (N = 6) with community members not involved in the PAR meetings (N = 50) and children of the community (N = 26) were conducted following the PAR meetings. Thematic analysis of the PAR and focus group data was conducted. Results: Delivery of messages on how to keep families safe, provision of personal protective equipment and improved water systems were part of the strategies taken by the community to create awareness and reduce the spread of COVID-19. Nine themes were identified: Attitudes to the pandemic: From skepticism to acceptance, Changing attitudes about vaccination: rumors and trust, COVID-19 and Faith, Social impact of the pandemic, Access to water, Resource mobilization: personal protective equipment, Spaces where collaborative effort can bring to solutions, Agents of change, and Empowerment of women. Discussion: The participatory approach of this research allowed understanding of the challenges faced by the community to engage in behavior change strategies to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and enabled the community to find sustainable solutions. Engagement with the community empowered men and women to be agents of change and promoted necessary precautionary actions to reduce the risk of infection within their community. Conclusion: Participatory approach highlighted the importance of engaging with and integrating to local culture and values to overcome challenges such as gender imbalance and distrust. Findings of this study are relevant to others working in diverse cultural settings in similar crises events regardless of particular cultural variations.