“…Men very often will approach issues with a problem-solving mentality. That is not what women with cancer are looking for. They want emotional support and acceptance.”
~ Chris Segrin, head of the UA Department of Communication, conducting breast-cancer studies with the College of Nursing
Research in Action:
Focus on Health
Health issues in society are complicated, and they cannot be adequately addressed without the contributions of social scientists. This article spotlights three health-related projects in SBS that have a real-world impact.
Introduction to our three projects:
Mamadou Baro is trying to find sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty in Africa; Chris Segrin is working with the College of Nursing to increase communication and improve the quality of life for cancer patients and their partners; and Andrea Romero is incorporating hip-hop dance and music to decrease alcohol use and other risky behaviors among Tucson youth. All these projects have benefited from gifts or grants from government agencies and private foundations. From the Lance Armstrong Foundation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, funding agencies impact our ability to make a difference in the world.
Fighting Hunger in Africa
Mamadou Baro has been working for years to address hunger in sub-Saharan Africa. He’s discovered that relief efforts can be slow and ineffective without local solutions and face-to-face encounters.
Baro, an associate research anthropologist in the UA Bureau for Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA), and colleagues determine which areas need the most help and listen to the people in the village to determine what kind of help they need.
“People know what their problems are,” says Baro. “It’s better to let them manage the problem than to micromanage it from the outside.”
Baro says the villagers usually need money, which they can use for their most pressing needs, from food to medical supplies to livestock. Baro has implemented this approach with the local nonprofit Niger Direct — a committee of professors, students and Africans living in Tucson who volunteer their time and money. The volunteer team completed an assessment of the food crisis in the Tanout region of Niger and provided money to 61 households in the village of Yighlaf to support the purchase of food and livestock.
“Another serious issue was health care,” says Baro. “In Yighlaf, there are no health facilities. We decided to hire a nurse from another village to provide services every two weeks.”
Baro recently completed a program with the British Red Cross, which gave money to 86 sites in the area of Tanout. The cash project was targeted to help farmers when they have exhausted their grain supply yet must replant fields for the next farming season. The money helps the households avoid negative coping strategies such as selling their livestock.
A recent grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pairs up BARA with Oxfam America. BARA will evaluate the effectiveness of the program “Saving for Change,” which targets women because they are often the most vulnerable and take care of the children.
About 20 women form a group; the members save money, make loans and pay each other interest. Members use the loans to start or grow small businesses, purchase seeds or buy medical supplies. The outside funding is used to train the women.
Baro says the program is admirable because it creates sustainable solutions. “Usually, people come in and when they leave the whole program collapses,” says Baro. “Here, the women will be able to sustain themselves in the long run.”
Baro’s research is funded by: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. British Red Cross, United Nations World Food Programme , USAID
Helping Cancer Patients and their Partners Thrive
When Chris Segrin talks to the husbands of women with breast cancer, he reminds them they need to provide support to their wives — but maybe not the type of support they are accustomed to.
“Men very often will approach issues with a problem-solving mentality,” says Segrin, head of the UA Department of Communication. “That is not what women with cancer are looking for. They want emotional support and acceptance.”
And it turns out that the men need support too. Historically, health care professionals have overlooked the experience of the partner of the cancer patient. However, spouses also experience emotional distress such as depression, helplessness, anxiety and exhaustion. And if the partner is distressed, the patient becomes more distressed.
Segrin and Terry Badger, a professor in the UA College of Nursing, have been studying these issues for the last several years. They are conducting studies of women with breast cancer and their partners, and men with prostate cancer and their partners, looking at their social support, the quality of their relationship, and their emotional well-being over time. The intervention includes 30 minutes of telephone counseling a week for both the patient and the partner.
Some of their findings include:
• A strong marriage and social support can lower distress for the patient.
• Women tend to enjoy and benefit from the telephone consultation more than men, regardless of whether they are the patient or the partner.
• Women tend to be more distressed than men, regardless of whether they are the patient or the partner.
• There is an “emotional contagion” between the patient and their partner. Patients who have a partner who is emotionally distressed do worse, both emotionally and physically.
• For men with prostate cancer, strong social support not only helped their emotional well-being, it also helped them manage the physiological effects of their cancer (e.g., sexual dysfunction, urinary incontinence).
Segrin and Badger have also offered the intervention to Latina women with breast cancer and cancer patients in rural areas. They are currently assessing whether counseling using video phones is more effective than counseling over the phone.
Segrin hopes that their research draws attention to the need to provide counseling to both the patient and their partner throughout the cancer experience.
“For people with cancer, social support predicts decreased mortality,” says Segrin. “The mind-body distinction is a false dichotomy. It is important to provide holistic health care.”
Segrin and Badger’s research is funded by: American Cancer Association, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Oncology Nursing Foundation
Using Hip-Hop to Decrease Alcohol Use Among Teenagers
Actually, hip-hop music is the hook that helps researcher Andrea Romero recruit teenagers into her program, and a topic she can use to get them talking about, not only their cultural heritage, but also the realities of drugs and sex in their neighborhoods.
“Many of them are interested in learning how to break dance and rap,” says Romero, associate professor in the Mexican American Studies & Research Center. “We teach them about the origins of hip-hop dancing and music, which are different from the mainstream rap videos that they often see on TV. And then we talk about their history in terms of oral story telling, which links with rap. It also opens up opportunities to talk about substance abuse and risky sexual behavior.”
Romero has found that increasing Mexican American youth’s knowledge of their culture and history empowers them to abstain or decrease alcohol use and other risky behaviors.
Romero stresses that ethnic minority youth are faced with negative stereotypes of themselves — that Latinos don’t graduate, do more drugs and are more promiscuous. They need tools to be able to counter these messages in a positive way.
“One element we talk about is that some hip-hop music and videos glorify drugs and sex,” says Romero. “We get them questioning — what are the messages being sent to me? What do I think about those messages?”
Romero runs the program with middle school and high school students, primarily in South Tucson. UA students knowledgeable about hip-hop culture help by creating and teaching lessons. She works in collaboration with community agencies, including the city of South Tucson, John Valenzuela Youth Center, the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, and the Tucson Urban League.
The results of the program have been very positive. Romero surveys the youth before and after the program and sometimes again six months after the program. Alcohol use was significantly decreased and use of other illegal drugs was prevented in results from two separate studies.
“We’ve also changed their perception of what their peers and parents think about alcohol use, which helps them fight stereotypes and increases their resilience,” says Romero.
Romero is applying for another grant that will allow her to reach 1,200 youth over the next five years through summer programs.
Romero’s research is funded by: National Center on Minority, Health and Health Disparities, National Institute on AlcoholAbuse and Addiction, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
For more information, contact Lori Harwood at 520-626-3846 • Editor