Publications by authors named "Paris Wheeler"

Background: Researchers and participants who are members of minoritized populations experience negative psychosocial and wellness outcomes like burnout. Burnout may manifest uniquely for Black women in academia conducting research with Black women participants navigating similar sociocultural contexts.

Objectives: This article qualitatively interprets our experiences as 15 Black women scholar-practitioners at a midwestern university conducting community-engaged research.

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: Several studies link racism with drug use disparities among systemically marginalized populations. However, few invite Black Americans to discuss how they perceive racism's impact on their drug use. : To examine qualitative accounts from N=40 Black adults reporting non-medical prescription opioid use on their experiences of racism and drug use.

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Introduction: Opioid-related overdose mortality disproportionally affects Black adults in Kentucky, particularly overdoses associated with prescription opioid misuse (POM). Black adults also face other consequences of POM, such as disparate health and legal outcomes. While several factors effect POM, such as generational factors and gender, these risk factors are understudied among Black adults with a history of POM.

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The current study examined associations between traumatic life events, current and lifetime importance of mental health and substance use treatment, and crack cocaine use among 201 Black men who were incarcerated and nearing community reentry. Results indicated age, sexual trauma and lifetime importance of drug treatment were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of crack cocaine use. Substance abuse treatment in correctional settings should consider culturally tailored assessment and treatment for history of unaddressed sexual trauma among Black men who are incarcerated and use crack cocaine.

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Background: Opioid overdoses have continued to increase at higher rates among Black Americans compared to people from other racial groups. Despite demonstrated effectiveness of MOUD in reducing risk of opioid overdose, Black Americans face decreased access to and uptake of MOUD. The current study aimed to examine the knowledge, perceptions, and experiences with MOUD among a sample of Black adults who use prescription opioids nonmedically in order to inform tailored efforts to improve MOUD uptake.

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Using General Strain Theory, this study investigates the effects of vicarious trauma exposure and perceived social support on nonmedical codeine syrup misuse among Black incarcerated men nearing community re-entry. Data were drawn from the Helping Incarcerated Men project, a study examining mental health, substance misuse, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) risk behaviors among Black men living in prisons who were within 180 days of release. A total of 200 Black men self-reported demographics (i.

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Black women have disproportionately alarming HSV-2 infection rates yet receive little attention in sexual health literature. Using a strengths-based resilience framework, this study sought to determine culturally relevant protective predictors of self-esteem for Black women who are justice-involved and have HSV-2. The authors conducted secondary data analysis on data from the "Black Women in the Study of Epidemics (B-WISE) Project," a longitudinal prospective study investigating health disparities and health services utilization among Black women with justice involvement.

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Incarceration disproportionately impacts Black men in the United States, which can have compounding effects on mental health and substance use among this population. Cocaine use, in particular, carries higher severity of dependence and overdose risks among Black Americans, though research examining cocaine use correlates among Black incarcerated men is limited. The present study examines race-related and mental health correlates of powder cocaine use among a sample of incarcerated Black men ( = 208) using the General Strain Theory.

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The current study examined the relationship between PTSD and nonmedical use of benzodiazepines (BZDs) based on level of John Henry Active Coping (JHAC) among African American incarcerated men. Data were derived from the Helping Incarcerated Men (HIM) Study (n = 208). Nonmedical use of BZDs was measured for the 30 days before incarceration.

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Research shows that substance use may be a way individuals cope with psychosocial stressors. Less is known about whether discrimination contributes to prescription drug misuse. Using a national sample of Black Americans, we examined whether two psychosocial stressors (i.

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Background: The misuse of prescription medications is an understudied topic among the non-Hispanic Black population in the U.S. Even less is known about the prevalence and correlates of misuse among African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, despite documented differences in their substance use behaviors.

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Objective: People who use cocaine experience numerous sleep problems and often use cannabis to mitigate these problems. However, co-using cocaine and cannabis may result in worse sleep outcomes when compared to using cocaine only. The current study examined group differences in subjective sleep outcomes among people who use cocaine and people who co-use cocaine and cannabis.

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Objectives: Among Black Americans, young adulthood marks an important developmental period for the initiation of problematic substance use and related health disparities. Unique cultural factors, such as discrimination and racial identity, influence substance use during this period, but it is unknown whether they influence more severe patterns such as polysubstance use. The current study identifies prototypical patterns of substance use among Black young adults and examines whether cultural factors are associated with those patterns.

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Since 2016, African Americans have experienced the largest increase in cocaine-related drug overdose deaths compared to other racial/ethnic groups. African American male prisoners who used drugs prior to incarceration are at an increased risk for relapse and overdose upon community re-entry. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as a guiding framework, this study examined correlates of perceived need for treatment among 193 drug-using incarcerated African American men nearing release.

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Incarcerated African American men who use marijuana are vulnerable to polysubstance use, which is associated with greater risk for negative health and psychosocial outcomes than marijuana use alone. It is imperative to understand risk and protective factors for polysubstance use among this vulnerable population to inform the development of culturally tailored substance use interventions. The current study examined the association between John Henryism Active Coping (JHAC), family social support, psychiatric symptoms, and polysubstance use among African American incarcerated men who frequently use marijuana.

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The negative impacts of racism, including experiences of racial trauma, are well documented (e.g., Bryant-Davis & Ocampo, 2006; Carter, 2007).

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This pilot study evaluated the feasibility of implementing an evidence-based, culturally adapted HIV intervention with substance-using African American men in a prison setting. We recruited 60, soon-to-be released African American male prisoners from a larger study ( = 211) to be randomly selected for participation in the group-based HIV intervention, Real Men Are Safe-Culturally Adapted (REMAS-CA). Participants who were not selected for participation in the intervention received standard Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV prevention counseling education, provided during participant assessment in the larger study.

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Background: Children with higher body weights engage in more healthy weight control behaviors (HWCBs) and unhealthy weight control behaviors (UWCBs) compared to healthy weight peers. Parent restrictive feeding (parental attempts to limit what and how much children eat in an effort to manage youth weight) has also been associated with youth weight. However, there is limited research on parental feeding practices among non-Caucasian samples, despite evidence that parental feeding may function differently across races.

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Background: Recent studies have demonstrated that nonmedical use of prescription opioids (NMUPO) is a national phenomenon affecting a multitude of subpopulations, including incarcerated African American men. However, there has been little investigation of the correlates of NMUPO among this population.

Objective: Grounded in primary socialization theory, the current study aimed to examine the association between family bonds, family history of prescription drug misuse, and mental health symptoms on NMUPO among African American incarcerated men.

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There are inconsistent findings regarding the rates of nonmedical prescription drug use (NMPDU) among Black Americans. The majority of previous studies used pharmaceutical names of drugs and relied on national data that excludes incarcerated populations, in which Black men are overrepresented. Therefore, the current study aimed to describe pre-incarceration rates of NMPDU among Black men in prison using culturally relevant alternative drug names.

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Background: Research exploring parental restrictive feeding is mixed and shows that it both negatively and positively affects children's dietary intake. One hypothesis for these inconsistent findings is the use of parent-report vs. youth-report measures of parental restrictive feeding, but there are limited psychometrically-sound youth-report measures of this construct.

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