Jaime Booth, Ph.D, MSW is Associate Professor and the Associate Dean of Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. As a social work scholar, Dr. Jaime Booth’s research partners with youth and leverages novel research methods to investigate the role of context and identity in the stress process and subsequent health disparities. More specifically her work seeks identify and address structural and interpersonal racism and increase supports to prevent disparities in psychological distress and substance use. In the NIDA funded SPIN Project, Dr. Booth partners with Black youth to conduct an intensive longitudinal study that aimed to understand Black youths’ experiences in activity spaces, its impact on stress, and subsequent marijuana use. Leveraging ecological momentary assessment methods this study was able to move beyond the neighborhood contexts to understand variations in stress and support within and isolate the effect of exposures. Building upon the SPIN Project’s methods, GetSafe, in partnership with investigators in the University of Pittsburgh’s Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine aims to investigates the role of activity spaces and social networks in Black youths’ experiences of stress and recovery after witnessing community violence. In addition to observing the role of activity spaces in adolescents' experience of stress and support, Dr. Booth works with interdisciplinary teams to develop and pilot two interventions that leverage technology for community change; HYPE Media, a critical literacy, digital humanities program, and The DATA project (NSF:2016982), which partners with Black youth to develop a collaborative learning platform. Dr. Booth work can be found in high impact journals such as Health & Place, Youth & Society, Journal of Adolescent Health and the Journal of Research on Adolescents. The excellence of her scholarship has been recognized with the receipt of the Association of Community Organizing and Social Action Emerging Scholar Award (2017) and the Society for Social Work Research’s Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award (2020).
To learn more about her work check out some of her most recent publications:
Booth, J. M. (2024). Using EMA to explore the role of Black adolescents' experiences in activity spaces in momentary negative emotion and marijuana use. Health & Place, 85, 103158.
Booth, J. M., Shaw, D., Song, H., Sintim, D., Pearl, D., Pollard, J., & Weaver, E. (2022). Examination of the Relationship Between Daily Perceptions of Collective Efficacy and Marijuana Use Among Black Youth: Does the Location of the Perception Matters?. Youth & Society, 0044118X221114425.
Ortega‐Williams, A., Booth, J. M., Fussell‐Ware, D. J., Lawrence, Y. J., Pearl, D., Chapman, N. E., ... & Overby, Z. (2022). Using ecological momentary assessments to understand Black youths’ experiences of racism, stress, and safety. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 32(1), 270-289.
Wilson, T. K., Riley, A., Khetarpal, S. K., Abernathy, P., Booth, J., & Culyba, A. J. (2023). Exploring the impact of racism on Black youth: a multidimensional examination of discriminatory experiences across place and time. Journal of Adolescent Health, 72(2), 246-253.
Risha, Z., Mallavarapu, A., Farzan, R., Booth, J., Sondel, B. & Walker, E. (2022, June). Proposing a Role Based Framework for Data Literacy. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences.
Booth, J. M., Lin, Y. & Kai, W. (in press). Online Social Networks, Neighborhood Disadvantage and Residents’ Distress: Harnessing Twitter Data to Examine Neighborhood Effects. Journal of Community Psychology.
Booth, J. M., Teixeira, S., Zuberi, A., & Wallace Jr, J. M. (2018). Barrios, ghettos, and residential racial composition: Examining the racial makeup of neighborhood profiles and their relationship to self-rated health. Social science research, 69, 19-33.
Booth, J. M., Chapman, D., Ohmer, M. L., & Wei, K. (2018). Examining the Relationship Between Level of Participation in Community Gardens and their Multiple Functions. Journal of Community Practice, 26(1), 5-22.
Booth, J., Wei, K., & Little, A. (2017). Examining the Impact of Food Environment Changes on County-level Obesity Prevalence in the Appalachian Region. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, 10(4), 14-33.
Wei, K., & Booth, J. (2017). The Association between Neighborhood Factors and Mexican Americans' Mental Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review. J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare, 44, 133-159.
Urbaeva, Z., Booth, J. M., & Wei, K. (2017). The Relationship between Cultural Identification, Family Socialization and Adolescent Alcohol Use among Native American Families. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26(10), 2681-2693.
Ohmer, M., Teixeira, S., Booth, J., Zuberi, A., & Kolke, D. (2016). Preventing violence in disadvantaged communities: Strategies for building collective efficacy and improving community health. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment. 26, 608-621.
Booth, J. M., & Jonassaint, C. (2016). The Role of Disadvantaged Neighborhood Environments in the Association of John Henryism With Hypertension and Obesity. Psychosomatic Medicine.
Booth, J. M., & Anthony, E. (2015). Examining the interaction of daily hassles across ecological domains on substance use and delinquency among low-income youth of color. The Journal of Human Behavior and the Social Environment. doi:10.1080/10911359.2015.1027026
Booth, J., M., & Anthony, E. (2015). The differential relationship between parental worry and adolescent outcomes by linguistic preference among low-Income Mexican American families. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24, 1232-1242.
Marsiglia, F. F., & Booth, J. M. (2015). Cultural adaptation of interventions in real practice settings. Research on Social Work Practice, 25, 423-432.
Booth, J., Marsiglia, F., & Ayers, S. (2012). Perceived neighborhood safety and psychological distress: Exploring protective factors. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 39, 137-156.
- Neighborhood effects on health disparities
- Use of technology ( i.e. Twitter, mobile phones) to measure neighborhood dynamics
- The role of immigration and acculturation on Latinx adolescent health outcomes
- Research methods
- Youth engagement in community processes
- Impact of stress on health
- Health disparities
- Protective factors
