Three CBCS Faculty Among Team Awarded a USF Women's Health Collaborative Grant

Congratulations to CBCS faculty Manisha Joshi, Guitele Rahill and Linda M. Callejas who are among six USF faculty awarded a Women’s Health Collaborative (WHC) Grant from USF Health. They will work with Abraham A. Salinas-Miranda (Grant PI), Heather Agazzi and Cheryl Vamos to investigate strategies to mitigate peritraumatic distress (PD) and prevent losses in educational achievement/attainment for African American (AA) teen mothers in the study, COVID-19, Peritraumatic Distress, Mental Health and Educational Attainment in a sample of African American Teen Mothers in Hillsborough County’s Alternative Education Programs.

Historically, AA adolescents have experienced racial and health disparities including adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and unplanned pregnancies. Parenting causes more school dropouts and poorer educational achievement/attainment for AA teen mothers relative to non-AA peers. COVID-19 adds layers of stress and trauma for teen mothers, potentially disrupting educational attainment and achievement. Little is known about how AA teen mothers experience COVID-19 biopsychosocially.

The team will use a mixed-method design to collect survey and focus group data. They plan to mentor graduate students who share sociodemographic characteristics of teens in the proposed study and who are members of the CBCS Interdisciplinary Lab for Prevention of Violence and Promotion of Mental Health. Findings will be used to develop and submit abstracts to conferences and publications.