Congratulations to our 3 Social Work based research teams on their recently funded projects for the 2024 CRSP and RISE-MH pilot program on race and mental health! See below for more details on each of these high impact projects.
"Cultural influences on treatment engagement in serious mental illness (SMI): A comparison of US Korean immigrants and native Korean citizens"
Project Team: Christina Babusci (not pictured), Hyun Jin Lee, Dr. Nev Jones
This study will leverage comparisons between native and immigrant Korean populations in order to tease out the influence of cultural context/heritage as well as immigration and minoritization (in a new country). The project team anticipates generating unique and important insights into culturally-inflected beliefs that may influence help-seeking and treatment engagement in both South Korea and the US, but also ways in which the process of minoritization, including minoritization in the context of mental health services and providers, and acculturation in the US, differentially influence the trajectories of Korean-American immigrants.
“Renew Your Mind: A feasibility study to disseminate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques through Black churches to promote positive mental health of African American populations"
Project Team: Dr. Deborah Moon and Dr. John Wallace
The Renew Your Mind study builds on previous collaborations among the interdisciplinary Pitt researchers, mental health clinicians with expertise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), faith leaders in African American churches, and Black church musicians, which is called the CHURCH (Congregations as Healers Uniting to Restore Community Health) project.
This new study will implement Renew Your Mind for faith leaders from 8 African American churches in Pittsburgh and evaluate its preliminary effects on participants’ knowledge of core CBT skills and attitudes toward mental health promotion and treatment. The study will also examine faith leaders’ acceptability and perceptions of the feasibility of implementing and sustaining Renew Your Mind in Black churches. Ultimately, the study seeks to promote positive mental health among African American communities by increasing access to evidence-based strategies to manage mental distress through cultural tailoring and integration of spirituality.
"Partnering with Black Mental Health Providers to Support Assessment and Evaluation of Practice"
Project Team: Dr. Aliya Durham, Dr. Jaime Booth, Dr. Yodit Betru, Sharise Nance, LCSW
Culturally responsive mental health providers cite limited capacity to conduct assessments and evaluations as a barrier to sustaining and expanding services. The Partnering with Black Mental Health Providers to Support Assessment and Evaluation of Practice research project will use Human-Centered Design (HCD) to understand and assess practice barriers and co-create programming, tools, and services to support the use of assessment and evaluation with Black mental health professionals in Southwestern PA. Serving as Co-Principal investigators are Dr. Aliya Durham and Dr. Jaime Booth with Dr. Yodit Betru lending clinical expertise as Co-Investigator in partnership with Sharise Nance, LCSW, as Lead Community Partner