In addition to publishing in peer-reviewed journals, Center for HOPES researchers publish briefs, memos, reports, fact sheets, presentations, and data visualizations for government agencies, community groups, policymakers, issue advocates, health professionals, and the general public.
Briefs, Memos, Reports
October 2022 Issue Report | The Dual Burden of Unmet Reproductive Health Care Needs among Women with Substance Use Disorder in Ohio
Frazier, L.A., Trinh, A., Moon, K.J., Nawaz, S. (2022, October). The dual burden of unmet reproductive health care needs among women with substance use disorder in Ohio. Center for HOPES [Report].
March 2021 Research Memo | The Ohio COVID Survey Provides an Intimate Portrait About the Impact of the Pandemic on Ohio’s Households
Frazier, L.A., Harlow, K.J., Anagbonu, F. (2021, March). The Ohio COVID Survey provides an intimate portrait about the impact of the pandemic on Ohio’s households. Center for HOPES [Research Memo]. https://u.osu.edu/hopes/files/2021/03/OCS1_Memo.pdf
November 2020 Issue Overview | The Dual Burden of Unmet Reproductive Health Care Needs among Women with Substance Use Disorder
Frazier, L.A., Trinh, A., Nawaz, S. (2020, November). The dual burden of unmet reproductive health care needs among women with substance use disorder. Center for HOPES [Issue Overview]. https://u.osu.edu/hopes/files/2020/11/Dual_Burden_Overview.pdf
Journal Articles
April 2022 Predicting Breast Cancer Risk in a Racially Diverse, Community-Based Sample of Potentially High-Risk Women co-authored by Wilson Figueroa.
Meadows, R.J., Figueroa, W., Shane-Cars0n, K.P., Padamsee, T.J. (2022). Predicting Breast Cancer Risk in a Racially Diverse, Community-Based Sample of Potentially High-Risk Women. Cancer Medicine, 11(7). https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.4721.
December 2021 La Equidad en Tiempos de Pandemia: A Case Study of Promotores on the Frontline of COVID-19 Response in Latinx Communities in Orange County, California co-authored by Kyle Moon and Saira Nawaz.
Itzel Monteil, G., Moon, K., Bracho, A., Mejia, N., Cantero, P.J., Arpero, S., Pantoja, L., Nawaz, S. (2021). La Equidad en Tiempos de Pandemia: A Case Study of Promotores on the Frontline of COVID-19 Response in Latinx Communities in Orange County, California. Border-Lines, XIII, 158-179.
Promotores de salud (community health workers) have been proposed as a critical workforce to respond to the pandemic in these communities, yet there is limited knowledge about the work of promotores on the frontlines. This article presents a case study of Latino Health Access’ response to COVID-19 in Latinx communities of Orange County, California, where promotores have serve provided direct services while also working to advance health equity and mobilize their communities. Lessons from this case study can guide future efforts in COVID-19 response, including vaccine rollout, and long-term rebuilding.
July 2021 Letter to the Editor Regarding: Medicaid Prescription Limits and Their Implications for Naloxone Accessibility (by Roberts et al., 2021) co-authored by Lisa A. Frazier.
Talbert, J., Bohler, R., Frazier, L., El-Bassel, N., Freeman, P.R. (2021). Letter to the Editor Regarding: Medicaid prescription limits and their implications for naloxone accessibility (by Roberts, et al., 2021). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 226 (1), 108888.
In an article published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence earlier in the year, Roberts et al. identify and describe policies that limit the number of prescriptions a beneficiary may fill across state Medicaid programs. However, their conclusion about monthly prescription fill limit policies overstates the proportion of the adult Medicaid population for whom access to naloxone is potentially restricted. Frazier and her co-authors explain some of the nuances of state Medicaid policies that affect the complete picture of naloxone access.
June 2021. The Ohio COVID-19 Survey: Preliminary Findings and Their Use During the Pandemic co-authored by Lisa A. Frazier, Eric Seiber, Kristin J. Harlow, Selasi Attipoe, and Brian O’rourke.
Frazier, L.A., Seiber, E., Harlow, K.J., Attipoe, S. O’rourke, B. (2021). The Ohio COVID-19 Survey: Preliminary findings and their use during the pandemic. Ohio Journal of Public Health 4 (1), 11-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ojph.v4i1.8067
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created exceptional health and economic uncertainty for Ohioans in 2020. In the spring of 2020, the state commissioned the Ohio COVID-19 Survey (OCS) to ask residential Ohio adults about how the pandemic was affecting them. This study presents findings from the first four months of the weekly survey, conducted between April 20, 2020, and August 24, 2020.
Preliminary findings from the OCS reflect 3 themes among respondents: 1) elevated levels of concern over health and household economics; 2) disproportionate effects that exacerbate existing inequities; and 3) majority adjustment to “new normal” and acceptance of public health guidelines. Overall, authors find that groups that were struggling before the pandemic have faced the biggest challenges with regard to health and household economics since it began.
Also in this issue: The Design and Methodology of the Ohio COVID-19 Survey co-authored by Eric Seiber.
Berzofsky, M.E., Freedner, N., Scruggs, C., Ashmead, R., Sahr, T., Lu, B., Nau, M., Seiber, E., Rosebrook, H., Duffy, T. (2021). The design and methodology of the Ohio COVID-19 Survey. Ohio Journal of Public Health 4 (1), 7-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ojph.v4i1.8067
This article provides a detailed description of the research design, sampling, and data collection methods used in the Ohio COVID-19 Survey.
June 2
021 Queremos Transformar Comunidades: Incorporating Civic Engagement in Promotor-led COVID-19 Response Efforts in Latinx Communities co-authored by Saira Nawaz.
Montiel, G.I., Moon, K.J., Cantero, P.J., Pantoja, L., Ortiz, H.M., Arpero, S., Montanez, A., Nawaz, S. (2021). Queremos Transformar Comunidades: Incorporating civic engagement in promotor-led COVID-19 response efforts in Latinx communities. Journal of Hispanic Policy 33, 79-101.
This study presents findings from a promotor-led intervention in Latinx communities in southern California. Mixed methods analysis reveals ways in which COVID-19 vulnerabilities are associated with the ability to participate in the democratic process, suggests novel, community-based mechanisms of civic engagement, and informs future efforts to prioritize resilience and equity into immigrant and 1st and 2nd generation communities.
Download the issue to read the article.
May 2021 Addressing Emotional Wellness During the COVID-19 Pandemic: the Role of Promotores in Delivering Integrated Mental Health Care and Social Services co-authored by Saira Nawaz.
Moon, K.J., Montiel, G.I., Cantero, P.J., Nawaz, S. (2021). Addressing emotional wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of promotres in delivering integrated mental health care and social services. Preventing Chronic Disease 18, E53. https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd18.200656
Mental health needs have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, Latino communities experience disparate rates of stress, depression, and anxiety. This article describes a community-based intervention, the promotora model, which integrates social services and mental health services as strategies to address service gaps in Latino communities. With ongoing COVID-19 surges and with vaccine distribution underway, a critical need remains to respond with equity. Latino Health Access’s Emotional Wellness program emphasizes the importance of delivering mental health care integrated with social services and provides a model to reduce the effect of COVID-19 in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
May 2021 COVID-19 Surveillance for Local Decision-Making: An Academic, School-District, and Public Health Collaboration co-authored by Anne Trinh and Ayaz Hyder.
Hyder, A., Trinh, A., Padmanabhan, P., Marschhausen, J., Wu, A., Evans, A., Iyer, R., Jones, A. (2021). COVID-19 surveillance for local decision-making: An academic, school-district, and public health collaboration. Public Health Reports. https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549211018203
Most school-reopening plans are currently based on guidance from federal, state, and local health departments and include data collection and reporting and protocols for social distancing and wearing face masks for in-person instruction, athletic events, and other activities. Data-informed decision making is valued among school districts, but challenges remain for local health departments to provide data.
In 2020, a multi-sectoral team used several data sources to construct disease- and school-based indicators for COVID-19 surveillance in Franklin County (Columbus), Ohio. In this article, the team reports how they collected, processed, analyzed, and visualized data to develop the COVID-19 Analytics and Targeted Surveillance System for Schools (CATS). CATS included web-based applications (public and secure versions), automated alerts, and weekly reports for the general public and decision makers, including school administrators, school boards, and local health departments. The team rapidly deployed a pilot version of CATS in August and September 2020, then expanded the system to 21 additional school districts in Central Ohio in subsequent months.
The authors report that piloting a surveillance system with diverse school districts facilitated scaling up the system to other districts and that leveraging existing relationships and identifying emerging needs were critical to rapid and sustainable collaboration. They also emphasize that valuing and utilizing diverse skill sets was key to rapid deployment of this innovative public health system during the pandemic.
February 2021 Use of Non-Preferred Contraceptive Methods Among Women in Ohio co-authored by Saira Nawaz.
Chakraborty, P., Gallo, M.F., Nawaz, S., Smith, M., Hood, R.B., Chettri, S., Bessett, D., Norris, A.H., Casterline, J., Turner, A.N. (2021). Use of non-preferred contraceptive methods among women in Ohio. Contraception. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2021.02.006
While contraceptive use is well-characterized in the US, the mismatch between use and preference is not as well studied. Understanding method preference is essential to understanding unmet contraceptive needs. Using the Ohio Survey of Women (OSW), a population-based survey about reproductive health conducted among adult, reproductive-age women in Ohio, the authors measure the gap between preferred and actual contraceptive method use among women 18-44 years of age.
The authors, who are part of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network (OPEN), find that a quarter of women reported not using their preferred contraceptive method and that the most common barrier to obtaining their preferred method was affordability. Long-acting methods, oral conception, and condoms were the most preferred methods; emergency contraception was the least preferred. Those using their preferred method reported more consistent contraceptive use and intent to continue use compared to those not using their preferred method. (Consistent contraceptive use is strongly associated with lower rates of unintended pregnancy.)
Consistent with the finding that affordability was reported as the most common reason for non-use of preferred methods, the authors find that low socioeconomic status is a key predictor of preferred method use. Reporting poor provider satisfaction related to contraceptive care, not having a yearly women’s checkup, and Hispanic ethnicity were also associated with lower use of preferred method. These findings provide further evidence that cost, quality, and access barriers in conceptive care reduce effectiveness and autonomy in conceptive use.
February 2021 Daily Stressors and Diurnal Cortisol Among Sexual and Gender Minority Young Adults co-authored by Wilson Figueroa.
Figueroa, W. S., Zoccola, P. M., Manigault, A. W., Hamilton, K. R., Scanlin, M. C., & Johnson, R. C. (2021). Daily stressors and diurnal cortisol among sexual and gender minority young adults. Health Psychology, 40(2), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001054
January 2021 Rebuilding With Impacted Communities at the Center co-authored by Saira Nawaz.
Montiel, GI., Cantero, P.J., Montiel, I., Moon, K., Nawaz, S. (2021). Rebuilding with impacted communities at the center: the case for civic engagement approach to COVID-19 response and recovery. Family & Community Health. doi: 10.1097/FCH.0000000000000294
Hispanic/Latinx persons are shouldering disproportionate burdens of both the COVID-19 pandemic disease and its economic fallout. Societal inclusion (in contrast to marginalization) is an important social determinant of health; voting, in particular, is associated with better self-reported health. While inequities in health care access, housing, income, and employment type have been discussed as drivers of poor COVID outcomes in Latinx communities, little attention has been paid to the role of civic engagement.
In a survey of Latinx program participants and community members, Latino Health Access – a nonprofit community-based organization in Orange County, California – found that nonvoters had significantly higher rates of food insecurity, reductions in work hours, and housing instability, and less capacity to respond to a COVID-19 case in the household.
These preliminary findings indicate that civic engagement may be an important pathway to building resilience within Latinx communities for future health crises.
December 2020 Racism Measurement Framework: A Tool for Public Health Action and Accountability co-authored by Saira Nawaz, Eric Seiber, and Anne Trinh.
Nawaz, S., Moon, K.J., Seiber, E., Trinh, A., Bennett, S., Joseph, J.J. (2020). Racism measurement framework: A tool for public health action and accountability. Ohio Journal of Public Health, 3(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ojph.v3i3.8037
Racism is a principal determinant of health inequity. While it is encouraging that public health leaders around Ohio and the nation have declared racism a public health crisis, sustained progress will require ongoing measurement to determine which anti-racist efforts are working, and why.
In this review and commentary, Center for HOPES researchers categorize measures of racism along 3 dimensions that interact and build off of one another: (1) systemic racism, considering the health effects of policies in housing, voting, criminal legal system, economic opportunity, and health care; (2) interpersonal racism, and measures of provider bias and cultural competency; (3) internalized racism, measured as allostatic stress and heightened vigilance in distinct contexts.
After identifying knowledge gaps, they present a racism measurement framework that more comprehensively depicts the disparities caused by racism within Ohio and can be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of anti-racist efforts implemented across the state. As such, this framework provides not only a call for action against racism in Ohio, but an opportunity for organizations to measure the extent to which efforts have intervened on supposedly entrenched pathways to health inequities and disparities caused by racism.
December 2020 The HEALing Communities Study: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Trial at the Community Level to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths Through Implementation of an Integrated Set of Evidence-based Practices co-authored by Kristin J. Harlow, Eric Seiber, and Ayaz Hyder.
HEALing Communities Study Consortium. (2020). The HEALing (Helping to End Addiction Long-term SM) Communities Study: protocol for a cluster randomized trial at the community level to reduce opioid overdose deaths through implementation of an integrated set of evidence-based practices. Drug and alcohol dependence, 217, e108335-e108335.
December 2020 Health Economic Design for Cost, Cost-effectiveness and Simulation Analyses in the HEALing Communities Study co-authored by Kristin J. Harlow, Eric Seiber, and Ayaz Hyder.
Aldridge, A.P., Barbosa, C., Barocas, J.A., Bush, J.L., Chhatwal, J., Harlow, K.J., … & Murphy, S.M. (2020). Health economic design for cost, cost-effectiveness and simulation analyses in the HEALing Communities Study. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 217(1), 108336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108336
The opioid epidemic has had a devastating impact on Ohio, including 46,802 overdose deaths in 2018. A consortium of academic, state, and community partners in Ohio received a federal research grant, the HEALing Communities Study, to reduce overdose deaths by 40% through a community-level intervention intended to bolster evidence-based practices including harm reduction strategies, medication for addiction treatment, and safer prescribing practices. Ohio is one of four states participating in the HEALing Communities Study.
Researchers from the Center for HOPES are leading the HEALing Communities Study health economics effort in Ohio. They co-authored the recently published protocol for the study-wide health economics efforts. Although the study is ongoing, the health economics protocol paper outlines the boundary-pushing strategy for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the HEALing Communities Study interventions. The four-state team is utilizing costing strategies that have been used in clinical trials and extrapolating to cost the community-level intervention. In addition, simulation modeling will be used to estimate economic impacts of the intervention.
Dr. Eric Seiber leads the health economics team in Ohio. The team, including Dr. Kristin Harlow, collaborated with the national health economics team to design the research strategy for the cost-effectiveness analysis. They are collecting complex costing data to understand the societal costs of the intervention, as well as interpreting the economic data as it is collected.
August 2020 Linoleic Acid-Rich Oil Supplementation Increases Total and High-Molecular-Weight Adiponectin and Alters Plasma Oxylipins in Postmenopausal Women with Metabolic Syndrome co-authored by Kristin J. Harlow.
Cole, R. M., Puchala, S., Ke, J. Y., Abdel-Rasoul, M., Harlow, K., O’Donnell, B., … & Belury, M. A. (2020). Linoleic Acid–Rich Oil Supplementation Increases Total and High-Molecular-Weight Adiponectin and Alters Plasma Oxylipins in Postmenopausal Women with Metabolic Syndrome. Current developments in nutrition, 4(9). https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzaa136
March 2020 Medicaid Access During Economic Distress: Lessons learned from the Great Recession co-authored by Eric Seiber.
Benitez, J., Perez, V., & Seiber, E. (2020). Medicaid access during economic distress: lessons learned from the great recession. Medical Care Research and Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558720909237