scholarly journals Changing the Game: College Dance Training for Well-Being and Resilience Amidst the COVID-19 Crisis

2020 ◽  
pp. 152483992096370
Author(s):  
Joe Bohn ◽  
Stephanie Hogue

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all aspects of life, from health to financial to social. College students in particular have faced difficulties adjusting to an entirely virtual atmosphere, compounding the normal stressors that come with full class loads and transitioning into more independent adult lives. In response to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, a faculty member at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health designed impromptu, free dance lessons offered through a virtual video platform to the college and broader community. The lessons were offered with the intent of providing a healthy and engaging environment to help students and others in the community cope with lockdown stress, depression, and anxiety throughout spring and summer 2020. This article summarizes the structure of the intervention, lessons learned throughout implementation, and the broader practice potential during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 74S-89S ◽  
Author(s):  
Michio Murakami ◽  
Akiko Sato ◽  
Shiro Matsui ◽  
Aya Goto ◽  
Atsushi Kumagai ◽  
...  

The Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 posed major threats to public health. In response, medical professionals have tried to communicate the risks to residents. To investigate forms of risk communication and to share lessons learned, we reviewed medical professionals’ activities in Fukushima Prefecture from the prefectural level to the individual level: public communication through Fukushima Health Management Surveys, a Yorozu (“general”) health consultation project, communications of radiological conditions and health promotion in Iitate and Kawauchi villages, dialogues based on whole-body counter, and science communications through online media. The activities generally started with radiation risks, mainly through group-based discussions, but gradually shifted to face-to-face communications to address comprehensive health risks to individuals and well-being. The activities were intended to support residents’ decisions and to promote public health in a participatory manner. This article highlights the need for a systematic evaluation of ongoing risk communication practices, and a wider application of successful approaches for Fukushima recovery and for better preparedness for future disasters.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073428292110507
Author(s):  
Sean N. Weeks ◽  
Tyler L. Renshaw ◽  
Anthony J. Roberson

We evaluated the usefulness of scores from two transdiagnostic scales—the 8-item version of the Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth and the second edition of the Avoidance and Action Questionnaire—for estimating symptom severity on two measures of depression and anxiety. Responses from 797 college students, who mostly identified as White and female, to both measures of psychological inflexibility were analyzed to determine how well scores estimated anxiety and depression above or below a given severity level and at specific categories of symptom severity. Findings indicated that scores from both measures were acceptable to excellent screeners of concurrent ratings of anxiety and depression. Results varied somewhat depending on the measure used, level of severity targeted, and scope of screening. By investigating the screening accuracy of these transdiagnostic measures and potential cut scores to ease in interpreting results, we hope these measures might prove useful for addressing barriers in public health screening endeavors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 360-370
Author(s):  
Jared Menecha ◽  
Susan Muriungi

Objectives: To determine comorbidity of depression and anxiety among students at the Kenya Medical Training College, Kenya Methodology: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study design. Study participants were basic diploma students in a middle level college in Kenya. Data was collected using a researcher designed self-administered questionnaire for socio-demographic characteristics, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for severity of depression and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) for the severity of anxiety in all the students in the seven largest KMTC campuses. All the participants gave informed consent. Results: 18.4% and 20.2% of group A and B respectively had moderate depression while 48.5% and 45.8% respectively had severe depression. The equivalents for anxiety in groups A and B were 24.4% and 23.6% for moderate anxiety and 32.1% and 31.5% for severe anxiety. There was a higher rate of depression and anxiety in thesecond year; with a statistically significant association between depression and anxiety and the year of study in the two groups (p<0.0001 each respectively). All the other social demographic characteristics had no statistically significant association with depression or anxiety in the two groups. There was a higher prevalence of depression and anxiety co-morbidity in both groups which was statistically significant (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Depression and anxiety were highly prevalent and significantly co-existent among the KMTC students. These mental conditions seemed to vary with the level of study training among college students. Therefore, the psychological well-being of college students need to be carefully addressed. There is need to closely monitor anxiety and depression to eliminate the risk factors and consequently prevent the development of adverse outcomes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunice M. Areba ◽  
Laura Duckett ◽  
Cheryl Robertson ◽  
Kay Savik

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 912-914
Author(s):  
Patricia A Kinser

Abstract Mid-career nurse scientists are at risk of burnout and departure from research-focused roles due to a myriad of reasons, including a nationwide faculty shortage, vacant administrative roles, and the challenging extramural funding environment. Retention and success of mid-career scientists in any health-related discipline is essential to maintain educational and research endeavors that are important for public health and well-being. This commentary provides an account of recent efforts to address these issues, from the perspective of a former fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine Leadership Institute. Although these efforts are focused specifically on the needs of nurse scientists, the topic is relevant to researchers in any discipline. The intent of this commentary is for others to benefit from the lessons learned and to build upon our current efforts to help mid-career scientists thrive, not just survive.


Author(s):  
Lisa C Yamagata-Lynch ◽  
Trena M Paulus

This design case will introduce how collective design intentions shared by a group of three program faculty for an online Instructional Technology (IT) Master’s program at the University of Tennessee (UT) were collaboratively identified and further acted upon within the context of the first course in the program. The course that is the focus of this case is “IT521 Proseminar 1: Instructional Technology as a Profession” in which we explored collective design intentions. The article begins with an introduction of the collective design intentions that program faculty shared. Then the article introduces how the first author enacted those design intentions in IT521 while working closely with the second author. The purpose for sharing this case is to document critical decisions that were made by one faculty member about a course within the context of shared design intentions for the program. The article ends with a discussion of lessons learned about communicating collective and personal design intentions to future designers who may be involved in similar situations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1286-1296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita DiGioacchino DeBate ◽  
Amy Gatto ◽  
Gregor Rafal

Considered a public health issue, the prevalence and severity of poor mental well-being on college campuses has continued to rise. While many college campuses offer mental health counseling services, and utilization rates are increasing, their proportional usage is low especially among males, who often deal with poor mental well-being by adopting unhealthy coping strategies. The purpose of this study was to use the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model to assess the relationship between the determinants as factors that may impact help-seeking behaviors in a large sample ( n = 1,242) of male college students. Employing a cross-sectional study design, a 71-item online survey assessed information via total mental health literacy (MHL), motivation via attitudes toward mental health and subjective norms regarding mental health, and behavioral skills via intentions regarding help-seeking behaviors, and stigma. Results revealed correlations between information and motivation ( r = .363, p < .01), information and behavioral skills ( r = .166, p < .01), and motivation and behavioral skills ( r = .399, p < .01). Multiple regression was used to determine stigma is a mediator for all relationships. These findings represent an opportunity to take a public health approach to male mental health through developing multilayered interventions that address information, motivation, behavioral skills, and stigma.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 238212052110320
Author(s):  
Tsuyoshi Okuhara ◽  
Hiroko Okada ◽  
Takahiro Kiuchi

We have taught writing for public health to students completing a Master of Public Health since 2016 in Japan. We adopted a writing-to-learn approach and assigned work to students to write health materials that encourage recipients to perform health behaviors (eg, drafting a poster to encourage lay audiences to adopt preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic). We collected students’ work assignments and products from 2016 to 2020 and reviewed them to identify distinctive trends common to all years. We found that there was a curse of knowledge (ie, difficulties to imagine the state of mind of not knowing when knowing something) among students. Students strongly embraced the adage “knowledge is power” and underestimated the difficulties lay audiences face. Their writing was somewhat dogmatic, whereby experts imparted privileged knowledge to ignorant non-experts. However, it is well known that merely imparting knowledge often does not work to educate lay audiences about making better decisions. Debiasing this curse of knowledge among students will be the main target of our writing education.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (S1) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Elizabeth (Bjerke) Van Nostrand

“Law in Public Health Practice” is an interdisciplinary, practice-based course in which the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, its School of Law, and the Allegheny County Health Department work collaboratively to identify an issue needing the expertise of multiple disciplines. For the first iteration, students in over four disciplines explored the possible regulation of tattoo parlors. The lessons learned are adaptable to any topic that engages students in more than one discipline to address real-world public health problems.


2021 ◽  
Vol In Press (In Press) ◽  
Author(s):  
John Chukwuma Oyem ◽  
Patrick Chukwuyenum Ichipi-Ifukor ◽  
Chukubueze Caleb Obi-Ojinika

Context: The outbreak of the highly infectious COVID-19 has led to a global public health and economic crisis, especially in developing countries. Due to the global burden and spread and the high mortality rate of the virus, as well as an inadequate mental health care system in Nigeria, inhabitants often experience fear, depression, and anxiety that, if left unaddressed, may lead to long-term consequences. Although depression was a concerning issue in Nigeria before COVID-19, the pandemic has caused a surge in depression cases. This review highlighted the possible causes of depression among Nigerians during the COVID-19 pandemic and identified potential mitigating interventions to prevent depression. Evidence Acquisition: We searched PubMed for the articles published from January 2019 to September 2020 using the terms of “depression”, “COVID-19”, and “Nigeria”. The articles resulting from these searches and the relevant references cited in those articles were reviewed. Results: Nigerians are likely to fall into depression due to the challenges and limitations affecting the economy and development of Nigeria. Conclusions: During the COVID-19 struggle, providing sound mental health services for individuals is imperative to maintain nations’ mental health for a more rapid recovery across various measures of societal well-being post-COVID-19.


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