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Choosing Life in the Black Community, Achieving the Dream: A Traumatic Stress Curriculum Pilot Study

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Abstract

This study measured changes in post-traumatic stress symptoms and collective-efficacy in African Americans participating in cohorts of “Choosing Life in the Black Community: Achieving the Dream”, an Afrocentricity-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy curriculum for trauma. Participants were recruited by key leaders in the black community of the Twin Cities, Minnesota Metropolitan Area and completed a 6-week group counselling curriculum led by lay health workers and supervised by professional psychologists. Twenty-six participants provided pre- and post-curriculum responses to validated measures of post-traumatic stress symptoms, collective-efficacy and adverse childhood experiences. Thirteen participants provided semi-structured interviews. Pre- to post-curriculum change score were calculated for post-traumatic stress symptoms and collective-efficacy. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Post-traumatic stress symptoms decreased and collective-efficacy increased, though neither change achieved statistical significance. Participants with more adverse childhood experiences showed significantly greater decreases in post-traumatic stress symptoms. There is evidence that this program may be particularly effective in participants that have greater past experiences of trauma.

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Funding

This research was supported by Grant HD18CHI01 from the Program in Health Disparities Research, University of Minnesota. Jonathan Miller is supported by Grant T32CA163184 from the National Cancer Institute (PI: Michele Allen).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota, 717 Delaware St SE, Suite166, Minneapolis, MN, 55414, USA

    Jonathan Miller

  2. Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Barite Dawud

  3. Stairstep Foundation, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Alfred Babington-Johnson

  4. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Harvey Linder & Sharif Willis

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  1. Jonathan Miller
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  2. Barite Dawud
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Correspondence to Jonathan Miller.

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Miller, J., Dawud, B., Linder, H. et al. Choosing Life in the Black Community, Achieving the Dream: A Traumatic Stress Curriculum Pilot Study. Community Ment Health J 57, 711–719 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00738-w

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