The idea of ‘tree equity’ is taking root
Founded in 2018, Speak for the Trees has been hosting their “tree walks” to talk about the benefits of trees, and to look at where there should be more of them. It’s an issue of equity. Trees provide a wide range of benefits, from filtering out air pollution to improving mental health — but not everyone gets to feel those benefits. From neighborhood to neighborhood, or even street to street, there are often wide disparities in the number of trees, which can have a broad impact on the overall health of a community. On a local, state and national level, though, governments and nonprofits are investing to make up the gap as the concept of “tree equity” is beginning to take root.
Racial gaps in gun violence against kids increased during COVID
White children did not experience an increase in firearm assault injuries at all.
Gun violence—and racial disparities in gun violence—have increased substantially during the pandemic, particularly among children. The new study shows just how stark these differences in risk of firearm injury are between white and non-white children.
February 2023 Spotlight – Judith C. Scott, PhD
My primary research interest focuses on how trauma such as physical child maltreatment and racism (interpersonal and structural), protective processes including ethnic-racial socialization and coping, and contextual factors affects parenting and mental health among families across cultures. However, it was my secondary research interest in program evaluation that led to my interest in Asian children and families. Right before I started as faculty at Boston University, a community organization, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, sent a request for an agency-level and community-level program evaluation. During the two-year evaluation, through talks with BCNC staff and reading existing literature, I realized that I rarely read about the perspectives and experiences of Chinese immigrant families living in low-income communities in relation to parenting.
Policing Health
Well before #DefundThePolice went viral, abolitionist activists and scholars had been calling for the redirection of funds from the criminal legal system into a broad set of nonpunitive community resources. Prior research has illustrated the expansive role police currently play in responding to social problems and health emergencies that could be addressed in other ways. To test this premise, we embarked on a study that asked whether a greater investment in social programs might reduce community reliance on police.
Boston Medical Center researchers report a surge in depression and anxiety among children of color
In “Changes in psychosocial functioning among urban, school‑age children during the COVID‑19 pandemic,” researchers found the rates of depression and anxiety among children of color aged from 5 to 11 spiked from 5% to 18% during the pandemic. The study, published in the journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, is one of the first to quantify the psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 among children of color using data collected before and during the pandemic, according to an article in Health City, an online publication run by BMC.