Scholar of the Month

Being a Black man was the first factor that interested me in Black men's mental health. Learning about how laws and policies either help or hinder Black male mental health was another factor that interested me in the Black male mental health. Similarly, laws and policies also impact community violence. I became interested in Black community violence because internal or microlevel attributions are often drawn for Black on Black crime, however macro level factors such as laws and policies are important.  

My research seeks to identify and quantify factors which contribute to degradation of Black male mental health and Black communities overall. My research also looks at microlevel or clinical things which can be done to improve the mental health of Black Americans.

In the global community, a tool, the Cultural Trauma Scale (CuTS) has been created to help clinicians and researchers reliably and validly measure Black factors associated with cultural trauma for Black men. At the community level, I would like to believe that my research helps to tell the stories, qualitative and quantitative, that speak to the truth of what Black people experience and the strengths and resilience of Black Americans.

My favorite part about my research is getting closer to the truth about a topic associated with Black mental health and Black communities. I believe there is an absolute truth but as researchers we are all limited in our ability to fully grasp it. Every piece of data that is collected and every study brings us closer to the truth regarding research questions in the Black community.

I like to watch movies, listen to music, spend time with family, try different restaurants, paint, and many other things. Also, I truly enjoy research and formally writing about the clinical implications of my research for clinicians who are working with Black American individuals in mental health treatment.

Students will sometimes help in the data collection, writing, and relationship building with community partners.

Community members will aid me in building and sustaining relationships with the community I am working with. Often the community partners will provide some safety and assurance for the community members that we are collecting data from. Community members also provide me with opportunities to help them in various ways as well!

The next steps are to gain external funding so our statistical model can be validated in an independent sample. We currently have research that shows an empirical relationship between Black men's tripartite fear of police and their perceptions of cultural barriers to mental health. In an independent sample we want to estimate the extent to which Black men's tripartite police fear and other structural factors are empirically associated with Black men's perceptions of cultural barriers to mental health treatment.