Dear colleagues,
Having just completed a full-year sabbatical, I reflect on my experiences, lessons learned, and what I can put into action now that I am back in Tulsa. I spent July 2021 through June 2022 working with The Pittsburgh Study (TPS), co-directed by Liz Miller, Professor in Pediatrics, Public Health, and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, PA. TPS is a community-partnered research initiative seeking to learn what works to help children and youth thrive. TPS brings together research, best practices, and community assets to develop and research programs and policies to promote child health and educational equity and improve children’s lives – in Pittsburgh and beyond. I immersed myself in the Core Team (leadership team) of TPS for the year and participated in all their activities including building and cultivating the community-university partnership, research planning, and dissemination activities.
I learned quite a bit during my sabbatical year. The work of TPS is deeply embedded in the Pittsburgh community. I learned more about how a university and university-affiliated medical center, working in concert, can be a better partner with community agencies and local and state governments. My sabbatical gave me many opportunities to learn more about how to organize large-scale, community-partnered applied research overall as well as content knowledge on several new topics at the intersection of health and education with young children and their families. Specific topics include anti-racist approaches to intervention (medical and educational) and environmental justice.
What can I apply now that I am back home in Tulsa? During my sabbatical, I intentionally learned more about the health of young children, especially conditions related to environmental toxins. This new knowledge resulted in a manuscript that I am drafting with two colleagues from other universities about health services in Early Head Start. The knowledge gained during my sabbatical enabled me to expand the scope of my typical focus on educational and developmental outcomes related to early childhood programs. Second, I have a one-pager with a TPS/University of Pittsburgh colleague on air quality in early childhood settings that we are currently in the process of further developing – specifically identifying funding opportunities and additional collaborators. This project is interdisciplinary and could involve sites in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Thus, during my sabbatical I developed new research directions, expanded the scope of my interdisciplinary interests, and forged relationships with new collaborators.
Although it was exciting to be in a different location and work daily with new people, I must say it is good to be back in Tulsa and resume my work with ECEI. We just had our ECEI Fall Kick-off meeting, and it is exciting to discuss ECEI’s ongoing projects with our Tulsa-based community collaborators. We have new ECEI staff who have joined our seasoned staff, and all are enthusiastic about the coming year. We also had two new ECE faculty join our OU-Tulsa program and there are ample opportunities to expand interdisciplinary collaborations with our Norman-based colleagues too. Thus, although some pandemic-related challenges persist, I expect the 2022-23 year at ECEI will be productive and exciting.
As always, I appreciate any suggestions or comments you can offer. Please contact me by email or phone.
Director Diane Horm, dhorm@ou.edu, 918-660-3985
ECEI Shares Research at Multiple Conferences
ECEI’s researchers have been back in action with numerous presentations delivered at conferences across North America this year.
“The pandemic changed the way we work and interact, but we continued our research,” said Director Diane Horm. “We are thrilled to have so many opportunities to showcase the great work we have been doing."
CAP Partnership Extended
For over 15 years, ECEI has partnered with CAP Tulsa to evaluate and research components of their Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Recently, ECEI received additional funding to enhance and extend the partnership. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the aims from the previous proposal were not able to be studied. The new proposal is a three-year project, outlining a strategy that emphasizes longitudinal analyses (i.e., children’s growth across more than one academic year).
One crucial change to the data collection process is the implementation of LENA audio recorders, which will be used to collect language-use information. These recorders will be worn by both study children and classroom teachers and will capture interpersonal interactions, including individual children’s language production as well as the language received from interactions. Combined with Sphinx ASR software, the LENA recorders will capture speech patterns. The frequency and conversational turns from these patterns will be extracted and then coded.
A key difference between the former study and today’s: Data will be entered directly into an electronic database on the iPad rather than using paper scoresheets. This will help our research associates prepare reports in real time, run analyses quicker, and reduce time spent entering data. We are excited to streamline our data processes and to continue our partnership with CAP Tulsa.
Updates from the Field
Our ECEI Research Associates interact with children of all ages every day as they perform assessments and observations for our research. As we all know, you never know what to expect with children and these recent examples of amusing interactions are proof:
Both sides of the screen: Predictors of parents' and teachers' depression and food insecurity during COVID-19-related distance learning
Anne Martin, Anne Partika, Sherri Castle, Diane Horm, Anna D Johnson, Tulsa SEED Study Team
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented strains on both parents and teachers, both of whose mental and financial hardships have serious implications for young children's wellbeing. We drew on an existing cohort study of families with low incomes in Tulsa, OK when children were in their Spring of first grade in 2020. We surveyed parents and teachers - children's caregivers on both sides of the screen during distance learning - before and after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and schools were closed. We first compared the proportion of parents and teachers who were depressed and food-insecure before and after the pandemic struck. We then used pre-pandemic characteristics of parents and teachers in separate models to predict their depression and food insecurity during the pandemic. Results showed that rates of depression among both parents and teachers spiked after COVID-19, and food insecurity rates also increased among parents. For both parents and teachers, the strongest predictor of depression during COVID-19 was having experienced depression before the pandemic. Similarly, the strongest predictor of food insecurity during COVID-19 was having experienced food insecurity beforehand. These results point intervention efforts towards identifying the caregivers of children in low-income contexts whose mental and financial wellbeing are likely to be most compromised during this and perhaps future disasters.
Food waste, preference, and cost: Perceived barriers and self-reported food service best practices in family child care homes
Divya Patel, Daisy Butzer, Bethany D. Williams, Dipti A. Dev, Diane Horm, Denise Finneran, Bryce Lowery, Janis E. Campbell, and Susan B. Sisson
Family Child Care Homes (FCCHs) are a setting where providers care for children at their own residence. FCCHs face unique challenges and children may not always receive optimal nutrition and have higher risk of obesity compared to other programs. The objective of this study was to determine differences in food service best practices scores between FCCHs who did/did not perceive barriers to serving healthy meals.
Relationships between proximity to grocery stores and Oklahoma Early Care and Education classroom nutrition practices
Bethany D. Williams, Susan B. Sisson, Bryce C. Lowery, Dipti A. Dev, Diane M. Horm, Janis E. Campbell, Denise A. Finneran, and Jennifer Graef-Downard
The study purpose was to determine associations between proximity to grocery stores and Early Care and Education programs’ (i.e., ECEs) classroom nutrition practices and barriers, by ECE context (Head Start, community-based childcare [CBC], and family child care homes [FCCHs]). A statewide cross-sectional survey was implemented in Oklahoma ECEs. Directors reported classroom nutrition practices with the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment tool, and barriers to implementation. Locations of 457 grocery stores statewide were determined by in-person audit. Geocoded ECEs were considered within a “low proximity” area if no grocery stores were available within a 0.25-mile radius for urban, or 10-mile radius for rural, ECEs. From November 2019 to February 2020, 54 Head Starts, 159 CBCs, and 160 FCCHs participated. 31.0 % were considered as low proximity. Head Starts demonstrated the highest classroom nutrition scores for mealtime practices, and nutrition education and policy. While proximity to grocery stores was not related to classroom nutrition practices for any ECE context (p > 0.05), FCCHs located within a low proximity area reported barriers to implementing those practices more often compared to FCCHs in an area within accessible proximity of grocery store. Thus, proximity to grocery stores was related to barriers in FCCHs only; those provider’s experiences and perceptions may be most susceptible to influence of the community nutrition environment, compared to other ECE contexts. Contrary to studies in residential areas and schools, nutrition environments were not related to nutrition practices in ECEs. ECEs may serve as protective micro-environments supporting health for children residing in nearby low-access communities.
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