ENG 200 - Rickansrud Young

Despite the considerable prevalence of homelessness among very young children in the United States, there is a notable lack of research on risk, resilience, and developmental well-being of infants who experience family homelessness. In the present study, we considered social support as a resilience factor for quality of parent-infant relationships and parent depression among a sample of 106 parents and their infants (ages birth to 12 months) residing in emergency shelters for families experiencing homelessness. We assessed social support, parent histories of adverse experiences during childhood and adulthood, and parent current depression symptoms via structured interview measures, and we assessed quality of the parent-infant relationship with an observational approach. Results showed different patterns for the roles of adversity the parents had experienced during childhood compared to adversity experienced more recently, as adults. Childhood adversity predicted parent-infant responsiveness, with a positive association that was moderated by level of perceived social support. Parents with more childhood adversity showed more responsiveness with their infants only when they had access to high levels of social support. Adulthood adversity predicted higher scores for parent depression, while social support predicted lower parent depression scores. This work contributes to the very limited literature on the functioning of families with infants in shelters. Our discussion includes implications for research, policy, and prevention and intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education identified food pantries as a targeted setting for policy, system, and environmental (PSE) interventions to promote healthy eating among households who rely on pantries to supplement their food needs. The present study sought to identify factors influencing capacity and readiness to implement healthy eating PSE interventions in food pantries. Qualitative interviews were conducted via zoom with twenty-six community residents with experience receiving SNAP benefits and twelve SNAP-Ed staff in rural and urban counties in Ohio to identify themes and indicators related to community/organisational capacity and readiness to implement healthy eating PSE interventions in food pantries. Themes and related indicators generated based on inductive and deductive coding of interview transcripts were prioritised and weighted by eleven community nutrition experts during a virtual consensus conference. Five themes emerged; expert-derived weights (scaled low, 0 to high, 1) reflect the perceived importance of each to implementation of healthy eating PSE interventions in food pantries: food pantry capacity and logistics [0⋅252], networks and relationships [0⋅228], community nutrition practitioner capacity [0⋅212], food pantry user characteristics [0⋅156], and stigma and stereotypes [0⋅1⋅52]. Overall, seventeen indicators were identified reflecting these themes. Successful and sustained PSE interventions at food pantries will require a tailored approach that considers food pantries’ capacity, needs and opportunities within the community, and capacity of community nutrition practitioners. The themes and indicators identified provide guidance for responsive PSE approaches in food pantries that meet communities where they are.

Access to basic sanitation is a human right and a critical environmental determinant of health. In this paper, we detail the development of three tools to investigate sanitation justice: (1) our public restroom spatial database, (2) our field assessment tool, and (3) survey of restroom access experiences. We document our process to collect these data in a consistent, health equity-driven framework. Together, these tools comprise a suite of methods for the examination of public restrooms from the macro- to the micro-level, and highlight key opportunities to promote health and well-being among restroom-reliant populations (e.g., people experiencing homelessness) by advancing sanitation justice in the built environment. With an illustrative case study, we demonstrate how methods triangulation, using the tools in concert, can provide a comprehensive assessment of basic sanitation access in a given region-San Diego, CA. We also detail how each tool can also be used separately to assess key sanitation justice and health equity questions that may be of interest to researchers, public health practitioners, policymakers, and advocates, including: (1) where do public restrooms exist (mapping)?; (2) how accessible are public restroom facilities, and what health-supportive features do they have (field assessment)?; and (3) what are the experiences of people most reliant on the available public restroom facilities (survey)? The results of our case study demonstrate that these adaptable tools can be used to provide meaningful data on and a holistic picture of public restroom quantity, quality, accessibility, and the experiences of public restroom users in a given region.