4 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This study is a randomized effectiveness trial that tests the online delivery of a video-based intervention (One Talk at a Time (OTAAT)) relative to a control group over a one-year span. Hypotheses include: 1.) The OTAAT intervention will increase parental motivation to engage in racial-ethnic socialization (RES) conversations, their skills and confidence in having these conversations, and the frequency and quality of these conservations; 2.) The OTAAT intervention will increase youth reports of their coping with discrimination, perceived efficacy in coping with discrimination in the future, ethnic-racial identity, and youth mental and academic outcomes; 3.) Greater parental discrimination and youth discrimination will moderate links between OTAAT intervention and parental ethnic-racial motivation + competency as well as youth ethnic-racial identity, coping, and psychosocial outcomes.
Minority children disproportionately experience racial bias, which is linked to school failure, toxic stress, and health disparities. In contrast, a type of racial socialization called cultural pride reinforcement has been associated with positive academic, behavioral, and mental health outcomes. A clinic-based intervention to boost cultural pride may help parents foster resilience in their young children against the negative effects of racial bias. The investigators evaluated the extent to which a standard clinic-based early literacy program (Reach Out and Read (ROR)) and a similar program enhanced with cultural pride content (Cultural Pride Reinforcement for Early School Readiness (CPR4ESR)) are associated with improved cultural pride reinforcement practices, child development, family-provider communication, and health care utilization. Given the high representation of young children of color in the sample, the investigators hypothesized better outcomes among those who received the culturally tailored CPR4ESR program compared to those who received the standard ROR program.
African American children disproportionately experience racism, which is associated with behavioral health problems and school failure. Behavioral health problems impede learning and are more likely to be chronic, severe, disabling, and untreated in African Americans compared to Whites. Clinic-based interventions that boost cultural pride may improve outcomes related to behavioral health in young African American children. However, little is known about cultural pride interventions in this population. It is important to understand these processes in young children because early childhood is a period during which racial bias may develop and stymie behavioral health and learning, and cultural pride may support it. This project will recruit patients from primary care clinics in Los Angeles. The project will test a cultural pride intervention (Cultural Pride Reinforcement for Early School Readiness (CPR4ESR)) in young African American children. CPR4ESR provides culturally themed children's books and advice at health supervision visits of children enrolled at ages 2-4 years. It is based on a well-established national program called Reach Out and Read (ROR). ROR provides children's books and book-sharing advice at health supervision visits with reports of increased book-sharing behaviors and literacy. The specific aims of the proposed project are to: 1) assess the feasibility and acceptability of CPR4ESR implementation among parents and providers, 2) evaluate the capacity of CPR4ESR to improve cultural pride reinforcement and book-sharing behaviors in caregivers of young African American children, and 3) evaluate the capacity of CPR4ESR to improve behavioral health and literacy in young African American children. The interviews conducted in Aim 1 will guide refinement of the intervention tested in Aims 2 and 3. The mechanism by which CPR4ESR impacts behavioral health and literacy will be evaluated by statistical modeling. We hypothesize that: 1) caregivers who receive CPR4ESR will exhibit more CPR and book-sharing behaviors than those who do not, 2) children who receive CPR4ESR will exhibit better behavioral health and literacy than those who do not, and 3) increases in caregiver CPR and book-sharing behaviors will be associated with enhanced child behavior and literacy. This project will inform the development of interventions that address the negative health impact of racism on young African American children.
Research on racial discrimination (RD) continues to show the debilitating toll on mental and physical health for adolescents throughout their developmental trajectory, particularly for Black Americans. While adolescents may employ emotion-focused behaviors (e.g., overeating, etc.) in-the-moment to reduce discriminatory distress, such risk-laden behaviors can result in later disparities in their overall health. While this link has been repeatedly established in the literature, racially-specific protective mechanisms (e.g., racial socialization; RS) have been shown to disrupt the pathway from discrimination to health-related outcomes in adolescents. Although informative, the literature on RS has yet to advance our understanding of ways to improve upon these protective processes in Black families. Thus, the proposed study will further our understanding by aiming to improve RS competency (e.g., skills and efficacy) among African American caregivers and youth (ages 10-14) in Detroit, Michigan through the Engaging, Managing, and Bonding through Race (EMBRace) intervention. The EMBRace intervention facilitates spaces where Black caregivers strengthen and develop skills to be attentive to their adolescent's racial trauma while also reducing their own stress via racial coping knowledge and RS strategies. Parents and adolescents start each session by engaging in separate therapeutic sessions to process experiences of their Black identity. They will then join together for a family session that focuses on enhancing messages about racial pride, bias preparation, rationales behind promoting distrust, and why not engaging in RS practices may be detrimental to youth. EMBRace sessions will take place at the University of Michigan Detroit Center and community sites, and will be video recorded to improve upon the delivery of therapeutic techniques to the families we serve.