In celebration of Black History Month, CBCS will spotlight past and present faculty and staff and highlight their work and impact in the community.

Richard V. Briscoe, PhD - a change catalyst

Dr. Richard Briscoe retired from the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of South Florida (USF) in Spring 2012. Dr. Briscoe has more than 35 years of experience in providing training, mental health and support services to professionals in the local and national levels. His special interests are culturally competent participatory community-based research in African-American communities; university and community partnerships; and developing strategies to improve service delivery systems. Dr. Briscoe has been a stalwart in establishing programs and interventions to reduce health, education, social service and related economic disparities in low-income neighborhoods. For over ten years Dr. Briscoe directed the Multicultural Mental Health Training/Development program at USF. This program provided intensive mentoring for minority students and delivered comprehensive real-life experiences that helped prepare them to become highly skilled mental health professionals.

Dr. Briscoe was the recipient of the First Annual Kente Award in 2002 and has been the recipient of numerous local awards for his community-based work with African-American and health equity disparities research. In 2008, Dr. Briscoe received the Dorothy Richardson Award for Resident Leadership, an honor that each year recognizes eight community leaders from around the country for their outstanding contributions to their communities. That same year he received the Herbert Carrington Award for the Educator and Man of the Year. In 2009, he was recognized as one of the 100 Influential African-Americans in Tampa by the Tampa Tribune.

His passion for service to others in educational and community settings continues even in retirement. Dr. Briscoe currently lends his expertise consulting on several higher education initiatives and volunteering his time to not for profit community-based organizations and agencies throughout the Tampa Bay area.

Black History Month Did You Know Facts:

• Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr. (March 4, 1877-July 27, 1963): his most notable invention was the three-position traffic signal.
• Cowboy was actually a derogatory term used to describe the Black cowhands who made up nearly a quarter of all "cowboys".

Kathryn Hyer, MPP, PhD, FGSA, FAGHE,was recently installed as the new president of The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), the nation's largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging. She was elected by GSA's membership, which consists of more than 5,500 researchers, educators, practitioners, and other professionals.

Dr. Hyer is the 76th person to hold the office since the Society was founded in 1945. As president, she will oversee matters of GSA's governance and strategic planning, while also managing the program for GSA's 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting which will take place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from November 4 to 8.

Monica Landers, MSW, MA, was re-elected as a Director at Large to the Board of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice. Ms. Landers is a Senior Social and Behavioral Researcher in CFS.

On Wednesday, January 15th, 10 CSD AuD (Audiology Doctoral Students) attended the annual Hearing Technology Day in Tallahassee. This event was sponsored by the Florida Academy of Audiology and Florida Coalition for Spoken Language Options. The students helped to advocate in support of legislation toward hearing care and hearing aid coverage for children with private health insurance. Twenty five states already have enacted similar legislation and hopefully Florida will soon join that list. It typically takes at least three to five years to pass major legislation in Florida and that time frame is only possible when awareness and bipartisan support occur through spreading the word. The students helped to visit every legislative office and were able to help bring the total number of sponsors/cosponsors for helping children access hearing care up to 27 and counting.

Lindsay Peterson (SAS)
State Laws and Policies for the Protection of Older Adults in Natural Disasters
Sponsor: Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging
5/1/2020-4/30/2021
Amount: $19,757

An analysis of policies, laws, and regulations in 10 states with high rates of disasters, including Florida, with the purpose of determining what state-level provisions exist to protect vulnerable, community-dwelling older adults in these states. To do this we will review state documents and interview state officials, identifying predominant themes in the materials and interviews. We seek to better understand how states meet the disaster planning needs of vulnerable older adults, including lessons learned and changes made or anticipated because of previous disaster experiences. Our overall goal is to use this knowledge to recommend changes or highlight existing state-level policy practices to improve the safety of an aging population that is increasingly at risk as weather events become more severe.

Marilyn Stern (CFS)
ADAPT+: Optimizing an Intervention to Promote Healthy Behaviors in Rural, Latino Youth with Obesity and their Parents, Using Mindfulness Strategies
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health
12/1/2019-11/30/2022
Amount: $782,635

Latino youth living in rural areas represent an ethnic and geographical minority population at increased risk for obesity and obesity-related complications in adulthood including metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. To address this urgent public health issue, we synthesized our prior experience in child obesity intervention and tailored our multi-family behavioral intervention, Adaptando Dieta y Acción Para Todos (ADAPT), to the acculturation status, language, and national origin of our target population -- obese, Latino youth (8-12 years old), and their parents, living in rural communities. This NIH Stage I R34 application proposes a refinement and optimization of the ADAPT obesity intervention protocol + mindfulness parent stress reduction strategies (ADAPT+) (Stage IA) and feasibility assessment of ADAPT+ implementation (Stage IB), setting the basis for a Stage 2 R01 trial to determine ADAPT+'s efficacy in improving Latino families' eating and physical activity behaviors.

1. Strang, J., Volkow, N. D., Degenhardt, L., Hickman, M., Johnson, K., Koob, G. F., ... Walsh, S. L. (2020). Opioid use disorder. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 6(1), 1-28. doi: 10.1038/s41572-019-0144-6

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