Several researchers as well as high-profile female athletes have recently challenged the longstanding view that pregnancy/motherhood mark the termination of an elite athlete's career in sport. While these conversations have sparked change concerning the degree to which pregnant/parenting athletes are accepted within the sport industry, elite athletes continue to face discriminatory policies and practices as they navigate parenthood alongside their elite athletic pursuits. My thesis is presented in the publishable papers format. In my first paper, I used new masculinities theory, community-based participatory research, and semi structured interviews to explore the experiences of 10 elite/international and world-class male athletes (9 fathers, 1 expectant father) and the impact of children on their athletic careers. Through critical discourse analysis, I found that fatherhood both improves and impedes elite athlete-fathers' athletic performance. In my second paper, I used feminist poststructuralist theory, feminist participatory action research, and semi-structured interviews to explore the perspectives of 21 pregnant and parenting elite/international and world-class athletes (11 women, 10 men) on the developing degree of acceptance of parenthood in elite athletics. Through critical discourse analysis, I identified that, despite considerable recent advancements, there is still a need for increased acceptance of pregnant/parenting athletes. Taken together, these two papers advance understandings regarding athletes' perspectives on the current shifts surrounding parenthood and athletics. Further, the recognition of fathers' involvement in childcare underscores how male athletes represent an untapped resource for allyship for female athletes. My findings also call for significant continued change and action to better support pregnant/parenting athletes.

No description available.

<p dir="ltr">In recent years, employers and business leaders have increasingly discussed the topic of college graduate job readiness. A recent survey found that approximately 60% of employers expressed concerns about college graduates' preparedness for today's workforce and cited issues with work ethic, professionalism, communication skills, and technological skills, particularly among Generation Z graduates (Behbahani, 2023; Daniels, 2023; Heubeck, 2023; Intelligent, 2023; Kelly, 2024). With the rise of generative AI technologies, hiring practices are shifting towards skill-based hiring rather than degree-based hiring. As a result, many college graduates are left wondering whether they are adequately prepared for the constantly evolving workforce (Cengage Group, 2023; Flaherty, 2024; Mowreader, 2023; Nietzel, 2023). With workplace and educational technology constantly changing, higher education institutions and educators should consider providing more support and guidance to better prepare students for working with technology and in fast-paced environments. That being said, innovative approaches should be considered for reforming existing college degree programs and developing new programs. One such approach that can be used for continuous improvement, program assessment, and as a pedagogical intervention in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classrooms is the participatory action research method, photovoice.</p>

Background: Community gardens have existed in America since the late 1800s and have served multiple purposes from food subsidies to neighborhood beautification. The use of community gardens has grown in popularity and has been recommended as a way to encourage healthy eating habits in youth. Though the health benefits of having a diet high in fruits and vegetables is well known, youth in the United States do not meet recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake. Under-consumption of fruits and vegetables is problematic in youth, as eating habits are established in childhood. Community gardens have been successfully used to improve access, self-efficacy, preference, and consumption of fruits and vegetables. However, few published community garden studies have focused on low socioeconomic youth. The Dan River Partnership for a Healthy Community (DRPHC) was developed according to community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles. With a mission to reduce obesity using healthy lifestyle initiatives, community gardens are an evolving DRPHC initiative. Objective: To evaluate the feasibility (i.e., demand, acceptability, implementation, and limited-effectiveness testing) of a 10-week experiential theory-based gardening and nutrition education program targeting youth living in two public housing sites in the Dan River Region. Methods: Using pre- and post-program questionnaires/interviews, demand and acceptability were measured among youth, parents and site leaders. Implementation was measures via field notes and attendance. Limited-effectiveness was measured among youth using a pre-post design. Three researchers independently coded the qualitative transcripts, met to resolve disagreements, and built consensus through discussion of the codes. Similarly, field notes were reviewed and evaluated for reoccurring themes regarding barriers, facilitators, and other observations. For the quantitative measures, descriptive statistics were used to summarize the variables and Cronbach's alphas used to assess the reliability of each scale at baseline. Overall effects were tested with repeated measures ANOVA. An intent-to-treat analysis using the last observation carried forward method was used. A critical value of .05 was used for significance testing. A standard equation for reporting effect sizes on a single-group, pre-post study design is also reported. Results: Program enrollment included 43 youth, primarily African American. The positive demand and acceptability findings indicate the potential of the program to be used and suitable for the youth, parents, and site leaders. Field notes revealed numerous implementation facilitators and barriers. Youth weekly attendance averaged 4.6 of 10 sessions. Significant improvements (p<0.05) were found for some (e.g., FV asking self-efficacy, overall gardening knowledge, knowledge of MyPlate recommendations), but not all limited-effectiveness measures (e.g., willingness to try FV, FV eating self-efficacy). Study Implications: This study addresses recommendations for utilizing CBPR in community garden efforts and builds on community identified research priorities of the DRPHC. Results demonstrate the feasibility of a gardening and nutrition program targeting youth in public housing. Lessons learned are being used to adapt and strengthen the program for future efforts targeting FV behaviors. Findings will be shared with local community stakeholders and used to adapt and strengthen the program for future efforts in the Dan River Region targeting of fruit and vegetable behaviors. / Master of Science

As defined by the US Department of Health and Human Services, health disparities are "a particular type of health differences that are closely linked with social or economic disadvantages." These disadvantages include, but are not limited to, unequal access to quality health care and health information. Health disparities adversely affect groups of people based on racial or ethnic group, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, age, mental health, cognitive, sensory, or physical disability, sexual orientation, geographic location, or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion. To address the root cause of health disparities there has been a call for more comprehensive frameworks for detecting, understanding, and designing interventions that will reduce or eliminate health disparities. One such framework is a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach. CBPR is an orientation to research that focuses on relationships between academic and community partners, with principles of co-learning, mutual benefits, and long term commitment. CBPR also focuses on aspects of importance to the community with the aim of combining knowledge and action for social change to improve community health and eliminate health disparities. The overall goal of this dissertation is to build capacity and address health disparities among youth and adults in the Dan River Region. This region is federally designated as a medically under-served area/population and is located in the health disparate region of south central Virginia and north central North Carolina. This research draws on two CBPR projects, including an 8-week community garden program lead by the Dan River Partnership for a Healthy Community (DRPHC) and a 3-month childhood obesity treatment program, iChoose, led by the Partnering for Obesity Planning and Sustainability (POPS) Community Advisory Board (CAB). Since one of the primary aims for CBPR is to increase community capacity, this approach is the ideal process for engaging communities that suffer from health disparities. Thus, engaging community members as collaborators, our studies reported on the relevance and application of CBPR while simultaneously addressing health and capacity outcomes in the health disparate Dan River Region. / Ph. D.

Children and adolescents consume sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) excessively, which is associated with childhood obesity, dental caries, and increased risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Interventions spanning the socio-ecological model (i.e., intrapersonal, interpersonal, environmental, policy) have been shown to reduce SSB consumption under controlled conditions. However, not much is known about their potential to work under "real-world" conditions. This information can ensure that effective programs reach populations that could most benefit, such as children and adolescents in Central Appalachia, who consume three to four times more SSBs than their American peers. Central Appalachia is a rural, geographically isolated region where attempts to reduce SSBs are challenged by limited resources, skepticism toward health programs/providers, and pervasive cultural norms around SSBs. This dissertation describes three studies (2014-2016) that address these challenges by testing multi-level interventions that prioritize cultural acceptability and feasibility. The first study was a systematic review of child and adolescent SSB studies using the RE-AIM (reach, efficacy/effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance) framework to evaluate whether studies reported elements necessary for replicability, such as resources needed for delivery or factors that might prevent participation. The review revealed that available evidence does not provide this information, and recommended that future studies prioritize evaluating and reporting these elements. The second and third studies describe methods to test implementation of Kids SIPsmartER, a theory-based program targeting various socio-ecological levels, in an Appalachian Virginia county. The second study engaged a group on local middle school youth (n=9) in adapting the program, which targeted universal theoretical constructs, to ensure that it was culturally acceptable and demonstrated potential to generate community-wide changes. The third study used a randomized controlled design to determine whether Kids SIPsmartER was feasible as a school-based program. This study tested the program's potential reduce SSBs, as well as whether it was accepted, in demand, and able to be practically implemented within schools, the most common gathering place for rural adolescents. Taken together, these studies provide the foundation for larger, more controlled studies that prioritize both efficacy and replicability, in order to reduce the disproportionate burden of SSBs and associated diseases across Central Appalachia. / Ph. D.

Realizamos um estudo num CAPSII da cidade de São Paulo. Tratou-se de uma pesquisa participativa, portanto uma pesquisa qualitativa que teve como referencial metodológico o Comunity-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Tivemos a Reabilitação Psicossocial (RP) como referencial teórico, e tendo em vista a meta de emancipação e contratualização dos usuários do CAPS, realizamos uma pesquisa ação junto a um usuário e sua rede social. Mapeamos a rede social significativa deste usuário através do Mapa de Rede de Sluzki (2006), e iniciamos um trabalho de Acompanhamento Terapêutico (AT) junto ao usuário. Durante o processo compusemos as reuniões de Intervenção em Rede e ao fim construímos um segundo Mapa de Rede no intuito de avaliar se houve mudanças na composição da rede após as intervenções realizadas através desta pesquisa. A rede deste usuário era formada por pessoas do CAPS e de sua família que ao longo do processo apresentaram muitos recursos, era uma rede que inclusive já utilizara o AT e as reuniões de rede como forma de cuidado ao usuário e a própria rede. Vivenciamos nesse período, muitos momentos significativos e identificamos uma série de situações em que usuário e rede eram capazes de produção de sentido em seu cotidiano. Foi possível perceber a partilha de afeto entre o usuário e a rede, e inclusive entre os próprios membros da rede, e ao mesmo tempo havia troca de violência principalmente na relação entre o usuário e sua família. Era uma rede ciente dos preceitos da RP, mas ainda assim, com o agravamento da violência e se avaliava que o usuário estava pondo em risco a vida dele próprio e de seus familiares. A rede se viu impotente para lidar com essa questão e agiu afastando e internando o usuário. Durante o processo pudemos perceber que não somente o usuário, mas a família passara por um processo recente de perda de contratos sociais, especialmente quanto a trabalho e habitação. Ainda que apresente recursos é uma família que passou por um processo de exclusão do sistema de organização social, e o sentimento de impotência parece antes tratar desse processo do que da violência entre eles em si. Se apresenta tentador responsabilizar a família ou o serviço pelo processo vivido, mas parece se tratar de um processo mais complexo em que não se está claro qual é o papel de cada elemento. Através da convivência no serviço percebemos que a universidade e as pesquisas de pós graduação já compõem com o que se tem produzido nos CAPS, nesse sentido, mais do que eleger culpados, isso nos leva a supor ser necessário que nós, enquanto parte do problema, passemos a entender qual o papel que estamos desempenhando no processo, e talvez aí possamos fazer alguma diferença no ciclo que leva a violência, a impotência e a internação de uma pessoa / We conducted a study in a CAPSII at the city of São Paulo. This study is composed by a participatory research, using as a methodological referential the Community- Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PR) was our theoretical referential, and based on the goal of emancipation of CAPS\'s users, we performed an action research with a user and his social network. We mapped the significant social network of this user with the Network Map of Sluzki (2006) and initiated a Therapeutical Accompaniment (TA) with him. During the process we did Network Interventions meetings and in the end we built a second Network Map, to evaluate if it changed after the interventions we performed during this research. This user\'s network was composed by people from CAPS e from his family, which during the process presented many resources, a network that already had used the TA and the network meetings to provide care for the user and for the network itself. We lived, during the entire period, several significant moments and identified that the user and the network were able to produce meaning in his daily life. We could observe the sharing of affection between user and network and also between the members of the network. At the same time an exchange of violence could also be observed, especially between the user and his family. Although the network was aware of the RP\'s precept, with the escalation of violence it was evaluated that the user was putting his and his family\'s life at risk. The network felt powerless to deal with this problem and acted moving away from the user and interning him. During the process we could notice that not the user alone, but the whole family have passed by a recent period of social contract loss, especially regarding work and habitation. Even though his family presents resources, it is a family that passed by a process of exclusion from the social organization system and the powerless feeling seems to be related to this process rather to the violence between them. It is tempting to charge family or the service by the lived process, but it seems a more complex process and the role of each element is not clear. We could notice that university and post-graduation research compose with what have been produced in the CAPS. Hence, more than electing the guilty ones, this lead us to suppose that is necessary that us, as part of the problem, start to understand what is our role in the process, then we perhaps might make any difference in the cycle that leads to violence, impotence and people\'s internment

Realizamos um estudo num CAPSII da cidade de São Paulo. Tratou-se de uma pesquisa participativa, portanto uma pesquisa qualitativa que teve como referencial metodológico o Comunity-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Tivemos a Reabilitação Psicossocial (RP) como referencial teórico, e tendo em vista a meta de emancipação e contratualização dos usuários do CAPS, realizamos uma pesquisa ação junto a um usuário e sua rede social. Mapeamos a rede social significativa deste usuário através do Mapa de Rede de Sluzki (2006), e iniciamos um trabalho de Acompanhamento Terapêutico (AT) junto ao usuário. Durante o processo compusemos as reuniões de Intervenção em Rede e ao fim construímos um segundo Mapa de Rede no intuito de avaliar se houve mudanças na composição da rede após as intervenções realizadas através desta pesquisa. A rede deste usuário era formada por pessoas do CAPS e de sua família que ao longo do processo apresentaram muitos recursos, era uma rede que inclusive já utilizara o AT e as reuniões de rede como forma de cuidado ao usuário e a própria rede. Vivenciamos nesse período, muitos momentos significativos e identificamos uma série de situações em que usuário e rede eram capazes de produção de sentido em seu cotidiano. Foi possível perceber a partilha de afeto entre o usuário e a rede, e inclusive entre os próprios membros da rede, e ao mesmo tempo havia troca de violência principalmente na relação entre o usuário e sua família. Era uma rede ciente dos preceitos da RP, mas ainda assim, com o agravamento da violência e se avaliava que o usuário estava pondo em risco a vida dele próprio e de seus familiares. A rede se viu impotente para lidar com essa questão e agiu afastando e internando o usuário. Durante o processo pudemos perceber que não somente o usuário, mas a família passara por um processo recente de perda de contratos sociais, especialmente quanto a trabalho e habitação. Ainda que apresente recursos é uma família que passou por um processo de exclusão do sistema de organização social, e o sentimento de impotência parece antes tratar desse processo do que da violência entre eles em si. Se apresenta tentador responsabilizar a família ou o serviço pelo processo vivido, mas parece se tratar de um processo mais complexo em que não se está claro qual é o papel de cada elemento. Através da convivência no serviço percebemos que a universidade e as pesquisas de pós graduação já compõem com o que se tem produzido nos CAPS, nesse sentido, mais do que eleger culpados, isso nos leva a supor ser necessário que nós, enquanto parte do problema, passemos a entender qual o papel que estamos desempenhando no processo, e talvez aí possamos fazer alguma diferença no ciclo que leva a violência, a impotência e a internação de uma pessoa / We conducted a study in a CAPSII at the city of São Paulo. This study is composed by a participatory research, using as a methodological referential the Community- Based Participatory Research (CBPR). The Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PR) was our theoretical referential, and based on the goal of emancipation of CAPS\'s users, we performed an action research with a user and his social network. We mapped the significant social network of this user with the Network Map of Sluzki (2006) and initiated a Therapeutical Accompaniment (TA) with him. During the process we did Network Interventions meetings and in the end we built a second Network Map, to evaluate if it changed after the interventions we performed during this research. This user\'s network was composed by people from CAPS e from his family, which during the process presented many resources, a network that already had used the TA and the network meetings to provide care for the user and for the network itself. We lived, during the entire period, several significant moments and identified that the user and the network were able to produce meaning in his daily life. We could observe the sharing of affection between user and network and also between the members of the network. At the same time an exchange of violence could also be observed, especially between the user and his family. Although the network was aware of the RP\'s precept, with the escalation of violence it was evaluated that the user was putting his and his family\'s life at risk. The network felt powerless to deal with this problem and acted moving away from the user and interning him. During the process we could notice that not the user alone, but the whole family have passed by a recent period of social contract loss, especially regarding work and habitation. Even though his family presents resources, it is a family that passed by a process of exclusion from the social organization system and the powerless feeling seems to be related to this process rather to the violence between them. It is tempting to charge family or the service by the lived process, but it seems a more complex process and the role of each element is not clear. We could notice that university and post-graduation research compose with what have been produced in the CAPS. Hence, more than electing the guilty ones, this lead us to suppose that is necessary that us, as part of the problem, start to understand what is our role in the process, then we perhaps might make any difference in the cycle that leads to violence, impotence and people\'s internment

BACKGROUND: Results of the Global Adult Tobacco Survey in Kerala, India found that 42 % of adults were exposed to second hand smoke (SHS) inside the home. Formative research carried out in rural Kerala suggests that exposure may be much higher. Numerous studies have called for research and intervention on SHS exposure among women and children as an important component of maternal and child health activities. METHODS: Community-based participatory research was carried out in Kerala. First, a survey was conducted to assess prevalence of SHS exposure in households. Next, a proof of concept study was conducted to develop and test the feasibility of a community-wide smoke free homes initiative. Educational materials were developed and pretested in focus groups. After feasibility was established, pilot studies were implemented in two other communities. Post intervention, surveys were conducted as a means of assessing changes in community support. RESULTS: At baseline, between 70 and 80 % of male smokers regularly smoked inside the home. Over 80 % of women had asked their husband not to do so. Most women felt powerless to change their husband's behavior. When women were asked about supporting a smoke free homes intervention, 88 % expressed support for the idea, but many expressed doubt that their husbands would comply. Educational meetings were held to discuss the harms of second hand smoke. Community leaders signed a declaration that their community was part of the smoke free homes initiative. Six months post intervention a survey was conducted in these communities; between 34 and 59 % of men who smoked no longer smoked in their home. CONCLUSIONS: The smoke free homes initiative is based on the principle of collective efficacy. Recognizing the difficulty for individual women to effect change in their household, the movement establishes a smoke free community mandate. Based on evaluation data from two pilot studies, we can project that between a 30 and 60 % reduction of smoking in the home may be achieved, the effect size determined by how well the smoke free home steps are implemented, the characteristics of the community, and the motivation of community level facilitators.

Environmental justice communities, those disproportionately affected by pollutants, are simultaneously exposed to multiple environmental stressors and also experience social and cultural factors that may heighten their health risks in comparison to other communities. In addition to being more susceptible to toxic exposures and being exposed to more toxins, such communities may have weakened abilities to combat or rebound from such exposures. Many communities that are overburdened by environmental exposures reject traditional risk assessment approaches that solely consider the effects of single chemicals or mixtures of like chemicals and instead have advocated for the use of place-based approaches and collaborative problem solving models that consider cumulative exposures and impacts. Cumulative risks are the combined risks from aggregate exposures to multiple agents or stressors, including chemical, biological or physical agents and psychosocial stressors. This dissertation adapts three research approaches that each use either publicly available data (“expert” data) or community-generated data about environmental and social factors in Northwest Atlanta’s Proctor Creek Watershed. Through this work, we were able to define cumulative environmental and social impacts experienced by watershed residents and to prioritize geographic areas and environmental challenges for investments in environmental monitoring and further research, community capacity-building, and policy change. A principal finding of the study is that local community knowledge is helpful to fill critical gaps about local conditions and pollution sources than a reliance on expert data alone.