Author: Latest Results

Abstract

Objectives

Much of the research involving mindfulness, meditation, and other awareness-based interventions have repeated many historical patterns in non-participatory research that exclude Black communities and perpetuate racial hierarchies. A shift toward community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches is critical to facilitating authentic community partnership and advancing racial equity. The objective of this case study was to describe the evolution of a research-practice partnership within a parent mindfulness intervention study, which took place at a predominantly Black school community, as the project team increasingly incorporated CBPR principles into the project.

Method

Following pilot phase, the project team (including researchers, mindfulness teachers, and project staff) along with a cohort of prior participants engaged in a series of facilitated reflective discussions and semi-structured interviews. These discussions examined various challenges within the research-practice partnership and the principles of CBPR that alleviated these challenges, to highlight key lessons learned from critical phases of the project.

Results

The case study demonstrates that applying CBPR principles cultivated an enhance sense of authentic partnership in key phases of the project: developing a theory of change (TOC) and evaluation strategy; assembling project team roles and responsibilities; measure selection, data collection and interpretation; and during dissemination efforts.

Conclusions

Our lessons learned demonstrate how a commitment to CBPR principles can culminate in an intervention and evaluation process grounded in racial equity and help build community investment in mindfulness research.

Abstract

Globally, Indigenous people seek to develop sustainable livelihood options that enable them to practice their culture, look after their traditional estates and generate economic development outcomes for their wider community. Enterprise development can and may provide one such pathway. However, challenges can arise with regard to reconciling the core drivers of ‘economic development’ with aspirations to practice and preserve culture. Current enterprise development approaches and models do not always suit Indigenous contexts. In this paper, we present a practical tool to enable Indigenous leaders, their partners, and others, to consider enterprise development options grounded in culture that may generate multiple benefits including economic outcomes. Our tool combines critical review of alternative development models, with empirical research to outline a set of foundational principles, building blocks and potential enterprise development options. We apply the practical tool to a case study of a nascent enterprise from the northern Australia Indigenous-led bush products sector. The case study illustrates how enterprise development planning is integral and discussions should consider how to enable cultural governance, protection of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, potential benefits and sharing, access to resources, as well as the ‘building blocks’ for enterprise development and consideration of different enterprise approaches. The practical tool aims to ensure development pathways build on local economies and ecologies, do not compromise culture and recognise the influence of extra-local political economies on lived experiences and outcomes.

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven language models (chatbots) progressively accelerate the collection and translation of environmental evidence that could be used to inform planetary conservation plans and strategies. Yet, the consequences of chatbot-generated conservation content have never been globally assessed. Drawing on distributive, recognition, procedural, and epistemic dimensions of environmental justice, we interviewed and analysed 30,000 responses from ChatGPT on ecological restoration expertise, stakeholder engagements, and techniques. Our results show that more than two-thirds of the chatbot’s answers rely on the expertise of male academics working at universities in the United States, while largely ignoring evidence from low- and lower-middle-income countries (7%) and Indigenous and community restoration experiences (2%). A focus on planting and reforestation techniques (69%) underpins optimistic environmental outcomes (60%), neglecting holistic technical approaches that consider non-forest ecosystems (25%) and non-tree species (8%). This analysis highlights how biases in AI-driven knowledge production can reinforce Western science, overlooking diverse sources of expertise and perspectives regarding conservation research and practices. In the fast-paced domain of generative AI, safeguard mechanisms are needed to ensure that these expanding chatbot developments can incorporate just principles in addressing the pace and scale of the worldwide environmental crisis.

Abstract

Nearly one in five U.S. adults are impacted by long Covid. The health, social, and economic burdens of long Covid are complicated and trying. Although the causes of long Covid remain uncertain, emerging research suggests an infectious disease origin for at least some portion of cases. We draw on a grey and white literature, media reports, and postings on forums to examine the shared experiences of long Covid and the present argument for pathogen-pathogen interactions. Data suggest that long Covid disproportionately impacts communities that already experience disparities in health, specifically lower-educated, low-income, women of working age and minority ethnic groups as they have greater exposure to COVID-19 initially and experience the symptoms of long Covid more severely. Among these individuals, COVID-19 can play a role in reactivating viruses already present in the body (specifically herpesviruses) which accumulate over the course of a lifetime and generally persist in a dormant state. As such, long Covid may present as a syndemic in some communities – the clustering of synergistically interacting diseases, a consequence of deleterious social conditions. The syndemic nature of long Covid requires a syndemic response to address the intersecting social and biological drivers. At the population level, considerations of the social factors, disease co-morbidities including those dormant or yet to be diagnosed, need to be integrated into treatment protocols and public health responses.

Abstract

Nearly one in five U.S. adults are impacted by long Covid. The health, social, and economic burdens of long Covid are complicated and trying. Although the causes of long Covid remain uncertain, emerging research suggests an infectious disease origin for at least some portion of cases. We draw on a grey and white literature, media reports, and postings on forums to examine the shared experiences of long Covid and the present argument for pathogen-pathogen interactions. Data suggest that long Covid disproportionately impacts communities that already experience disparities in health, specifically lower-educated, low-income, women of working age and minority ethnic groups as they have greater exposure to COVID-19 initially and experience the symptoms of long Covid more severely. Among these individuals, COVID-19 can play a role in reactivating viruses already present in the body (specifically herpesviruses) which accumulate over the course of a lifetime and generally persist in a dormant state. As such, long Covid may present as a syndemic in some communities – the clustering of synergistically interacting diseases, a consequence of deleterious social conditions. The syndemic nature of long Covid requires a syndemic response to address the intersecting social and biological drivers. At the population level, considerations of the social factors, disease co-morbidities including those dormant or yet to be diagnosed, need to be integrated into treatment protocols and public health responses.