It was a busy month for the School of Social Work team. The April roundup includes nine publications.
The Center for Excellence in Assisted Living (CEAL@UNC) leaders and advisors met with the Senate Committee on Aging staff on April 3 to discuss key issues and policies related to assisted living. L to R: Jill Schewe, National Center for Assisted Living; Stacey Bergmann, Center for Innovation; Lea Efird-Green, UNC Chapel Hill; Philip Sloane, UNC Chapel Hill; Christopher Laxton, Independent Consultant; Sheryl Zimmerman, UNC Chapel Hill/Center for Excellence in Assisted living@UNC Executive Director; Doug Pace, Alzheimer’s Association; Kezia Scales, PHI
Publications
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development Sheryl Zimmerman, Hannah Neukrug (Richmond Behavioral Health), Todd Becker (Washington University in St. Louis) and Sol Baik (University of Virginia) co-authored “Substance use problems and disorders among adults 50 years and older receiving mental health treatment for a primary neurocognitive disorder” for Aging & Mental Health. The authors examined the factors associated with high-risk substance use or substance use disorder for adults 50 years or older who had a delirium or dementia diagnosis and received mental health treatment and identified the percentage of high-risk substance use or substance use disorder. The authors used data from 2013-19 from community mental health center patients 50 years or older receiving treatment who had a primary delirium or dementia diagnosis. They concluded that “One in 10 persons in this sample having high-risk substance use or SUD highlights the clinical necessity for screening and subsequent treatment for co-occurring high-risk substance use among persons receiving treatment for a neurocognitive disorder.”
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware, Albert Garcia-Romeu (Johns Hopkins University), C. Austin Zamarripa (Johns Hopkins University), Tamera Hughes (UNC School of Pharmacy), Leeza Wager (Johns Hopkins University) and Tory Spindle (Johns Hopkins University) co-authored “Codeine and promethazine: Exploratory study on “lean” or “sizzurp” using national survey data and an online forum” for PLoS ONE. The authors examined the use of lean, which contains codeine and promethazine, using a mix of national survey data and participation input on an online form, while focusing on concurrent substance use and determining lean-related experiences. Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2007-19, the authors found that the vast majority of respondents who used lean were young adult males who identified as Black/African American, Hispanic, and White; and they found “higher levels of concurrent alcohol and cannabis use” among those groups. The authors’ Reddit-based study also found that respondents who reported using lean were primarily male and had shown elevated concurrent rates of alcohol or cannabis use over the past 30 days. Nearly two-thirds of those respondents met the criteria for a substance use disorder pertaining to lean consumption. In closing, “These findings underscore the clinical significance and necessity for further controlled research on lean.”
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware, Jodi Frey (University of Maryland), George Unick (University of Maryland), Danielle Phillips (University of Maryland), Rachel Imboden (University of Denver), Amanda Mosby (University of Maryland), Clifford Mitchell (Maryland Department of Health) and Marianne Cloeren (University of Maryland) co-authored “Opioid-related overdose deaths in Maryland (2018), by industry and occupation” for Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The authors studied differences in opioid-related overdose deaths (OROD) among occupation and industry in the state of Maryland, as well as the demographic differences within the industry or job. The authors found overlap between the leading industries and occupational groups for OROD, such as construction and transportation, but also found differences by sex, age and race/ethnicity overall. They concluded that “Employers and state leaders should work collaboratively to target prevention and intervention for workplaces at highest risk for OROD. Construction was highest and needs supports that respond to the workplace culture.”
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware, Associate Professor Lisa de Saxe Zerden, Clinical Professor Sarah Verbiest, Postdoctoral Scholar in Implementation Practice Jenny Afkinich, doctoral student Denise Yookong Williams, Sandra Reeves Spears and John B. Turner Distinguished Professor of Social Work Trenette Clark Goings, Jacquelynn Duron (Rutgers University), Yanfeng Xu (University of South Carolina), Lauren McCarthy (University of Colorado Anschutz) and Qiana Brown (Rutgers University) co-authored “Prevalence of co-occurring conditions among youths receiving treatment with primary anxiety, ADHD, or depressive disorder diagnoses” for Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The authors conducted a study examining the proportion of youths in a community mental health center under 18 years of age with an anxiety disorder, depressive disorder or ADHD as their primary diagnosis who engaged in co-occurring high-risk substance use or had a substance use disorder. The authors used Mental Health Client-Level Data from 2017-19 that included more than 1.5 million youths, and their results found that youths with depression as their primary diagnosis were the most likely to engage in high-risk substance use or have a substance use disorder, at approximately 10%. Those with ADHD or anxiety as a primary diagnosis who engaged in high-risk substance use or had a substance use disorder represented approximately 5% of the youth sampled. The authors concluded that “Effective care for this high-need youth population at CMHCs will require mental health clinicians to possess knowledge and skills related to substance use treatment.”
Associate Professor Melissa Lippold, Gregory Chase (UNC Greensboro), Morgan Brown (UNC Greensboro), Jessica Navarro (Elon University) and Michaeline Jensen (UNC Greensboro) co-authored “Digital location tracking in the parent/caregiver-college student dyad” for Journal of Adolescence. The authors studied why and how parents track their children navigating through college via digital location tracking apps, and “how this may relate to perceptions of helicopter and autonomy supportive parenting.” The authors found that digital location tracking was prominent among college students, and “Younger, white, and higher socioeconomic status students were more likely to be tracked.” The students whose locations were digitally tracked by their parents tended to feel that their parents were acting more as helicopter parents without as much support for their autonomy. The authors concluded that “This brief report provides preliminary insight into parent/caregiver digital location tracking of their college student children. It is our hope that future research will further examine how digital location tracking may be helping or hindering attainment of developmental milestones in the digital age.”
Associate Professor Melissa Lippold, Associate Professor William Hall, doctoral student Denise Yookong Williams, Melissa Jenkins ’18 (MSW), ’23 (Ph.D.), doctoral student Hayden Dawes and Roger Mills-Koonce (UNC School of Education) co-authored “Parenting and Queer Youth Mental Health and Substance Use: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” for Adolescent Research Review. The authors conducted a systematic review on how parenting of queer youth, from ages 12-25, affected their mental health and substance use. The authors found that “Greater parental support and less parental rejection were both associated with fewer internalizing problems and substance use. The meta-analysis found that the effects of parental rejection on youth mental health were stronger than those of support. Only 3 studies examined other aspects of parenting and 5 examined parenting as a buffer against the effects of stress. Measures of parenting, especially parental support, were inconsistent across studies and often focused on general support rather than support specific to queer youth identities. Expanded conceptual models and measures are needed that capture the nuanced ways that parents may affirm queer youth identity and promote queer youth well-being.”
Associate Professor Melissa Lippold, Gregory Chase (UNC Greensboro), Michaeline Jensen (UNC Greensboro), Kacey Wyman ’23 (MSW), Melissa Jenkins ’18 (MSW), ’23 (Ph.D.), Somya Mohanty (UNC Greensboro) and Guy Bodenmann (The University of Zurich) co-authored “Parent strategies to help emerging adults manage stress are associated with their mental health: A dyadic coping perspective” for Family Process. The authors extended “models of dyadic coping from intimate relationships to the parent-emerging adult relationship and test whether six specific parent strategies to help emerging adults (EA) manage stress are associated with EA mental health. Emerging adults with parents who provided problem and emotion-focused supportive dyadic coping, delegated dyadic coping, and common/joint dyadic coping reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as higher levels of psychological well-being. In contrast, college-attending emerging adults who reported higher levels of parent-provided negative dyadic coping reported higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and lower psychological well-being. Parent-emerging adult dyadic coping is a fruitful area for future research and intervention development.”
Associate Professor Melissa Lippold, Gregory Chase (UNC Greensboro), Michaeline Jensen (UNC Greensboro), Kacey Wyman ’23 (MSW) and Jessica Navarro (Elon University) co-authored “Parenting Styles in Emerging Adulthood” for Youth. The authors sought to understand the ways that parents of emerging adults balance different factors such as demandingness, autonomy support and responsiveness to “help inform evidence-based recommendations around developmentally appropriate protective parenting.” The authors used 680 four-year university and community college students who reported on their parent/caregiver’s parenting behaviors. The four styles that emerged were two authoritarian profiles, an indulgent profile and a profile that had average levels of all parenting behaviors measured. “The potentially indulgent profile saw the lowest levels of depression, mood, and anxiety symptoms, whereas the potentially indulgent and authoritative profiles saw the most positive wellbeing outcomes. The findings underscore the way in which responsiveness and autonomy support in emerging adulthood appear developmentally appropriate and adaptive, and how helicopter parenting does not appear to be as important as other aspects of parent–emerging adult relationships.”
John A. Tate Distinguished Professor for Children in Need Emily Putnam-Hornstein co-authored the white paper and policy statement “The US Is Failing Substance-Exposed Infants” for the American Enterprise Institute.
Presentations & Trainings
Clinical Assistant Professor Alyssa Draffin presented curricula on the Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Course in New York City for a convening via Brain Futures. The convening included psychiatrists, social workers and nurses from Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Stanford and South Carolina.
The Center for Excellence in Assisted Living (CEAL@UNC) leaders and advisors met with the Senate Committee on Aging staff on April 3 to discuss key issues and policies related to assisted living.
Associate Professor Lisa de Saxe Zerden and Research Assistant Professor Brianna Lombardi presented “Interprofessional Education and Practice: Lessons Learned from First Year Rural Residency Programs” at the Rural Health Professions Education and Training (RTT) Collaborative Annual Conference in Asheville, N.C.
Research Associate Professor Tonya Van Deinse and Nicholas Powell (Georgia Department of Community Supervision) presented “Implementation science and translation: Disseminating innovations across probation contexts” at the Confederation of European Probation, Sixth World Conference on Probation and Parole at The Hague, Netherlands.
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware and Kelly Dunn (Johns Hopkins University) are presenting “Exposure to Bupropion-Sr vs. placebo is associated with reductions in smoking among persons who are receiving methadone and have no stated interest in smoking cessation” at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence 86th Annual Scientific Meeting in Montreal, Canada in June.
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware and two others are presenting “Prime Delivery: Implementing mobile treatment for opioid use disorder in a North Carolina County of primarily indigenous and underserved populations” at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in New York City in May.
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware and two others presented “Implementation of a statewide network scales addiction care for underserved populations” at the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s 55th Annual Conference in Dallas in April.
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware and five others presented “Smoking policies of outpatient and residential substance use disorder treatment facilities in the United States” at the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s 55th Annual Conference in Dallas in April.
Associate Professor Melissa Lippold was a panelist for “Preventing substance use and misuse” for the Chapel Hill campus and community coalition to reduce the negative impacts of high-risk drinking.
Assistant Professor Rebecca Rebbe presented “Pediatric Self-Harm Medical Encounters: Child Protection Histories & COVID-19” at the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research on Tuesday, April 16.
Doctoral Candidate Claire McNellan presented “When is Maltreatment Confirmed? Using Unsupervised Machine Learning to Advance Understanding of Child Protective Services Decisions” at the Population Association of America annual conference in Columbus, Ohio.
Associate Professor Sarah E. “Betsy” Bledsoe conducted the training “Recognizing Anxiety and Trauma Related Disorders” for the Southeastern Area Health Education Center in Fayetteville, N.C.
Associate Professor Sarah E. “Betsy” Bledsoe conducted the training “Recognizing Anxiety and Trauma Related Disorders” for the Area L Health Education Center in Rocky Mount, N.C.
Associate Professor Sarah E. “Betsy” Bledsoe was the presenting author for “Community Voices and Whole Robeson Together: Community Based Participatory Research to Promote Rural Maternal Emotional Health and Wellbeing.” The project was presented for the Thorp Faculty Engaged Scholars Class VIII, Carolina Center for Public Service at UNC.
Smith P. Theimann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Professional Practice Kimberly Strom participated in the Social Work Ethics Research Group meeting at the 13th annual European Social Work Research Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania. The conference, and the meeting, focused on the implications of artificial intelligence and other fast technologies for social work, including ethical deliberations.
John A. Tate Distinguished Professor for Children in Need Emily Putnam-Hornstein presented the keynote speech to more than 350 judges, lawyers, social workers and community members at the 41st Annual Child Abuse Symposium hosted by the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Santa Clara County, Calif.
John A. Tate Distinguished Professor for Children in Need Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Assistant Professor Rebecca Rebbe and Doctoral Candidate Claire McNellan presented “Using Vital Death Records to Validate a Child Protection Risk Algorithm” at the Society for Advancement of Violence and Injury Prevention (SAVIR) Conference.
Associate Professor Joy Noel Baumgartner and MSW student Katalia Alexander were part of a group that presented “Visual Acuity Problems Among Primary School Students in Tanzania: A mixed methods study” for the Society for Humanities, Social Science, and Medicine Conference in Chapel Hill on April 14.
Associate Professor Joy Noel Baumgartner was part of a group that presented “Mid-Upper Arm Circumference as a screening tool for identifying underweight adolescents nearing puberty: validity and equity implications in primary school settings in Tanzania” for the third annual UNC NORC Student Research Symposium in Chapel Hill on April 17.
The National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development met with its advisory board in April, when it had an opportunity to provide program and evaluation updates to advisory board members and receive feedback and input about its project. The advisory board is composed of 15 members including four family/youth with lived experience of trauma, two deans from schools of social work, two system-level experts, one practitioner from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, two faculty from schools of social work, two executives from NCTSN agencies, and two MSW students. Because the board members have been recruited from around the country, all advisory board meetings are held virtually.
The advisory board has assisted the National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce Development by reviewing NITEWD products such as the online course, Core Components and Skills for Trauma Informed Practice, and the MSW course. Board members have contributed to the development of NITEWD products by reviewing cases and curriculum materials for the online course and MSW course. The National Initiative for Trauma Education and Workforce development values the advisory board and is grateful for its continued support as the board continues to provide expertise, advice, and input about the processes and goals of NITEWD.
Awards, News & Recognition
Doctoral student Ally Waters received the Graduate Certificate in Participatory Research 2024 Seed Grant Award for her proposal “Using Participatory Research Methods to Identify Assets and Opportunities for Diversion and Reentry Services in Rural North Carolina.”
Assistant Professor Orrin Ware and Clinical Assistant Professor Alyssa Draffin received a scholarship to attend a Psychedelic Assisted Therapy certification conference through the Joe and Sandy Samberg Foundation at the Usona Institute in June 2024.
Assistant Professor Bridgette Thom received a grant from the Merck Investigator Studies Program for the project, “A web-based intervention to address health-related financial literacy in patients with triple negative breast cancer,” a mixed-methods, randomized controlled trial to compare the effectiveness of a web-based intervention versus standard care in improving health-related financial literacy in patients with triple negative breast cancer.
UNC Center for Aging and Adult Research and Educational Services (Cares) was the recipient of the Office of the Provost Award for Engaged Partnership thanks to its work in promoting the well-being of individuals with disabilities and older adults across the state. UNC Cares was one of nine award recipients for the 25th annual Public Service Awards.
Doctoral student Demeisha Carlton-Brown was accepted into the Researcher Resilience Training (RRT) Program at Washington University in St. Louis as a fellow from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025.
Associate Professor Joy Noel Baumgartner was awarded an NIH administrative supplement for an NIH R01 VITAA study in Tanzania to add in-depth qualitative interviews with adolescents. The title of the study is “Adolescent Wellness Visits to increase HIV testing and reduce health risks in Tanzania.”
