Investment, integration, and innovation: Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion across the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study consortium.

The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood. From the outset, the HBCD Study integrated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into its core mission, with key elements like an Associate Director for DEI, a DEI values statement, and establishing a DEI committee to help ensure sustainable progress for the future. The DEI Coordinating Committee supports DEI efforts impacting members of the HBCD consortium, study participants, and the analysis and dissemination of HBCD data. Committee members include representatives from every study site and workgroup which contributes to DEI integration throughout the study. Committee activities include reviewing all measures and protocols, creating accountability metrics, and supporting training opportunities for consortium members. Several successes and lessons have been learned through the Committee's activities like implementing consortium-wide unconscious bias training and changing the DEI leadership and committee structure. This article presents an overview of HBCD's DEI components within HBCD and provides examples of collaborative efforts between the DEI Coordinating Committee and other workgroups. The article concludes with plans for future activities and recommendations for other large consortia considering formal DEI structures.

Assessing prenatal and early childhood social and environmental determinants of health in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study (HBCD).

The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood. The charge of the HBCD Social and Environmental Determinants (SED) working group is to develop and implement a battery of assessments to broadly characterize the social and physical environment during the prenatal period and early life to characterize risk and resilience exposures that can impact child growth and development. The SED battery consists largely of measures that will be repeated across the course of the HBCD Study with appropriate modifications for the age of the child and include participant demographics, indicators of socioeconomic status, stress and economic hardship, bias and discrimination (e.g., racism), acculturation, neighborhood safety, child and maternal exposures to adversity, environmental toxicants, social support, and other protective factors. Special considerations were paid to reducing participant burden, promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and adopting trauma-informed practices for the collection of sensitive information such as domestic violence exposure and adverse childhood experiences. Overall, the SED battery will provide essential data to advance understanding of child development and approaches to advance health equity across infant and child development.

Transportation, childcare, lodging, and meals: Key for participant engagement and inclusion of historically underrepresented populations in the healthy brain and child development birth cohort.

Introduction: Participant recruitment and retention (R&R) are well-documented challenges in longitudinal studies, especially those involving populations historically underrepresented in research and vulnerable groups (e.g., pregnant people or young children and their families), as is the focus of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) birth cohort study. Subpar access to transportation, overnight lodging, childcare, or meals can compromise R&R; yet, guidance on how to overcome these "logistical barriers" is sparse. This study's goal was to learn about the HBCD sites' plans and develop best practice recommendations for the HBCD consortium for addressing these logistical barriers. Methods: The HBCD's workgroups developed a survey asking the HBCD sites about their plans for supporting research-related transportation, lodging, childcare, and meals, and about the presence of institutional policies to guide their approach. Descriptive statistics described the quantitative survey data. Qualitative survey responses were brief, not warranting formal qualitative analysis; their content was summarized. Results: Twenty-eight respondents, representing unique recruitment locations across the U.S., completed the survey. The results indicated substantial heterogeneity across the respondents in their approach toward supporting research-related transportation, lodging, childcare, and meals. Three respondents were aware of institutional policies guiding research-related transportation (10.7%) or childcare (10.7%). Conclusions: This study highlighted heterogeneity in approaches and scarcity of institutional policies regarding research-related transportation, lodging, childcare, and meals, underscoring the need for guidance in this area to ensure equitable support of participant R&R across different settings and populations, so that participants are representative of the larger community, and increase research result validity and generalizability.

The HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study (HBCD): NIH collaboration to understand the impacts of prenatal and early life experiences on brain development.

The human brain undergoes rapid development during the first years of life. Beginning in utero, a wide array of biological, social, and environmental factors can have lasting impacts on brain structure and function. To understand how prenatal and early life experiences alter neurodevelopmental trajectories and shape health outcomes, several NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices collaborated to support and launch the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study. The HBCD Study is a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, that will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood. Influenced by the success of the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM Study (ABCD Study®) and in partnership with the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative®, the HBCD Study aims to establish a diverse cohort of over 7000 pregnant participants to understand how early life experiences, including prenatal exposure to addictive substances and adverse social environments as well as their interactions with an individual's genes, can affect neurodevelopmental trajectories and outcomes. Knowledge gained from the HBCD Study will help identify targets for early interventions and inform policies that promote resilience and mitigate the neurodevelopmental effects of adverse childhood experiences and environments.

Trust in African Americans' Healthcare Experiences.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study is to clarify the concept of trust, identify its defining attributes, antecedents, and consequences, and apply to the healthcare experiences of African Americans. BACKGROUND: For African Americans, mistrust in the healthcare system is the result of unequal treatment that began in slavery. Fear and negative experiences engender a reluctance to trust healthcare providers, which contributes to health disparities. DESIGN: Walker and Avant's method of concept analysis was used to clarify the concept of trust. The concept was applied to African Americans' healthcare experiences with discussion of opportunities for trust building. DATA SOURCE: Data support for concept development was done using Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline, and online reference sources. REVIEW METHODS: Literature review was guided by using the keyword trust. Further contextual explication was done by adding a review of literature from sociology and history regarding the evolution of African American mistrust of the U.S. healthcare system. RESULTS: The defining attributes of trust are dependence, willingness, and met expectations. Antecedents to trust include a need requiring the help of another and prior knowledge or experience. The consequence of trust is an evaluation of the congruence between expected and actual behaviors of the trusted person or thing. Literature review of the African American culture adds a dynamic aspect for nurses to consider when developing relationships in minority communities. CONCLUSION: Trust is the willingness to enter a dependent relationship to have the needs addressed, and is maintained by met expectations. Rebuilding trusting relationships between providers and African American patients is a vital step toward reducing health disparities. Murray.