PREP student Joshua Montgomery presented his poster “Food insecurity and depression among adults with diabetes and pre-diabetes” at the 76th annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in New Orleans, LA.

Congratulations Josh!

The VCU Council for Community Engagement has held an event celebrating community-engaged work, during which they celebrated the awarding of six community engagement grants to university researchers and programs. One of the grant recipients was GREMAP’s Dr. Briana Mezuk, who has recently received a grant fro the Council for Community Engagement for a community partnership with the YMCA of greater Richmond focussed on research and programs for diabetes management.

Dr. Mezuk has been elected as a Fellow in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. The Behavioral and Social Sciences section includes researchers from a variety of disciplines, who apply their diverse skillsets and backgrounds to the study of aging and mid to late life.

Drs. Mezuk and Concha have been awarded a grant from the VCU Council for Community Engagement to support their partnership with the YMCA of Greater Richmond Diabetes Programs. The project, called “Strengthening a community-engaged research partnership to promote diabetes self-management in Richmond” will support mixed-methods research on the challenges people face when participating in a diabetes class and the ways they overcome those challenges, as well as the development of a Community Advisory Board to guide broader diabetes research efforts.

Congratulations to GREMAP members Joshua Montgomery, Viktoryia Kalesnikava, Katherina Crawford, and Lauren Gray on the presentation of your posters at the VCU Division of Epidemiology Student Poster Showcase!

A recent study has found that exposure to trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are associated with increased risk of arrest or incarceration for African Americans. The study, The Relationship between Trauma, Arrest, and Incarceration History among Black Americans, was produced as the result of a collaboration between the University of Michigan and Virginia Commonwealth University. Lena Jaggi was the first author on this paper, and GREMAP’s Dr. Briana Mezuk was one of the co-authors and collaborators.

Dr. Mohamed Abdelghani Ali presented findings from his Professional Affiliation experience with Dr. Mezuk at a recent GREMAP meeting. Dr. Ali will be traveling back to Egypt this summer after completing his fellowship and will continue to work on this project while there.

Drs. Mezuk and Concha led a two-day workshop this April for the H.H. Humphrey Fellows Program on “How to obtain data to inform policy and practice.” Fellows learned about survey design, respondent-driven sampling, community-mapping, and dissemination. Natalie Baries assisted as a teaching assistant.