Category: Summer Team Impact Project

College of Public Health Summer Team Impact Project

COVID-19’s Impact on Under-Resourced/Underrepresented College Students and their Peers

Author(s): Clarissa Montes

Mentor(s): Lawrence Cheskin, Nutrition and Food Studies; Matthew Rossheim, Global and Community Health; Alison Evans Cuellar, Health Administration and Policy; Zimako Chuks , Erika Kennedy , Graduate Assistants

This research study aims to identify how alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine consumption behaviors have shifted in under-resourced/underrepresented college students at George Mason University since the pandemic. While alcohol and substance use appears customary in the lives of college students, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a concern about regulating these uses. The stresses that the pandemic has presented have caused even more attention to college student’s mental health and how that correlates to changes in substance use and alcohol. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing mental health issues along with changes in the environment (i.e housing and social constructs) might have caused a shift in alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine consumption behaviors in under-resourced/underrepresented college students at George Mason University.

[Title Page Slide] Clarissa: Hello everyone. My name is Clarissa Montes along with Zimako Chuks. This summer, we have had the opportunity to work with fellow undergraduate and graduate research assistants, volunteers, and Mason faculty advisors on our Summer Team Impact Project titled COVID-19’s Impact on under-resourced/underrepresented college students and their peers at George Mason University. [Slide 1] Clarissa: Although our team is made up of several individuals, this specific project consists of Zimako Chuks, Myself, and Samara Tahmid. Zimako is a Graduate Research Assistant working towards her MPH in Epidemiology. I am an Undergraduate Research Assistant going into my senior year majoring in Global Community Health. And Samara Tahmid is a Research Volunteer also working toward her MPH. We are very excited to be working on this project and sharing it with everyone. [Slide 2] Clarissa: So what is COVID-19? Well according to the CDC, coronavirus, or more commonly known as COVID-19, is a disease caused by a virus. Those who contract the virus typically experience mild symptoms, however, it is highly possible for people to experience life-threatening symptoms. Older populations and those with underlying medical conditions are more at risk for severe illness from COVID-19. Ways to protect yourself from infection include regular hand washing, physical distancing, face coverings, and most importantly getting vaccinated. [Slide 3] Clarissa: In the United States alone, there have been almost 35 million COVID-19 cases, over 600,000 deaths, and almost 164 million fully vaccinated individuals. Sadly, new variants are emerging causing even more reported cases. As a result, it is important that we all continue protecting ourselves and others to prevent spreading the virus even further. [Slide 4] Clarissa: While conducting the research, we as a group have recognized how impactful the COVID-19 pandemic has been on many populations, especially college students. Since the onset of the pandemic, several students reported challenges and changes pertaining to academics, economics, social relationships, moods, behaviors, substance use, and beliefs. What my group is specifically focusing on is substance use and how consumption behaviors have shifted as a result of the pandemic, particularly among under-resourced/underrepresented undergraduate students. [Slide 5] Zimako: Substance Use It is important to examine substance use because use and addiction can be dangerous and cause lifelong negative health outcomes. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol use among college students is a popular custom that several students see as an integral part of their college experience. After reviewing articles that examined substance use in college students around the world during the pandemic, they found that rates of alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine were extremely mixed. Many factors such as living at home, losing close relationships with friends, etc were associated with lower rates of drinking. Social distancing was associated with a decrease in group marijuana use, however, stay-at-home orders saw slight increases in solitary and at-home use. Some college students quit nicotine during the pandemic while others used the nicotine to cope with stress. [Slide 6] Zimako: Methods The overarching goal of this study was to collect oral histories to gain a better understanding of how Mason students’ lives were altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We recruited participants using Facebook Groups and email listservs and reached out to over 3,000 students, successfully interviewing 133 participants. We conducted semi-structured in-person interviews all led by student researchers. Participants asked open-ended questions during the interview about topics such as academic life, financial stability, substance use behaviors, beliefs, mental health, and general behaviors. Interviews were audio-recorded and automatically transcribed through zoom. Student researchers were tasked with editing the transcript and performing preliminary analyses to separate common themes. Our small group analyzed common substance use behavior themes. [Slide 7] Zimako: Findings So now, we will share some of our preliminary findings. [Slide 8] Zimako: Results After performing preliminary analysis, we found that 34% of participants did not use substances during the pandemic. Some participants stated that use decreased because they were away from social groups. This caused some participants to drink less and to quit substances such as nicotine and marijuana. Around 15% of participants stated they did not use substances for religious reasons. During the pandemic, Some participants grew stronger in their religious beliefs while others moved home and had religions and strict home environments that did not allow substance use. [Slide 9] Zimako: We hope to continue our project this year and write formal research papers for publication. Our next steps include using NVivo software to code qualitative data to find the specific frequencies of themes. We hope to incorporate the screener data in our analysis to draw comparisons between participants’ living situations and substance use. Finally, we hope to perform 2 to 5 person focus groups to more in-depth questions pertaining to substance use. Slide 10 Zimako: Thank you Thank you for listening to our presentation. Should you have any questions please reach out to me at [email protected]

For more on this topic see:

Economic Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on GMU Students

COVID-19 Food Security Project

School of Business Summer Team Impact Project

Food Insecurity

Author(s): Ashanti Martin, Selassie Fugar

Mentor(s): Lisa Gring-Pemble, School of Business; Rebecca Sutter, School of Nursing; Anne Magro, School of Business; Charish Bishop, Kaulin Jennison, Graduate Assistants

While keeping the social determinants of health in mind, this project specializes in examining barriers in the area of Bailey’s Crossroad. When diving deeper, the focus is on food insecurity in that area as well as ways to connect the locals so that they can receive an easier access to free food. In this project there is an emphasis on prioritizing community individuals and what they would like to eat and what they use in their culture, instead of just providing pre-made food for anyone. Community organizations play a huge role in holding events that provide free food and refer individuals to healthy alternatives in nearby community gardens that are tended by schools and faith-based organizations. Food is an important part of a human’s life and to be restricted or cut off from that privilege is disheartening. Solutions to having individuals in the community feel comfortable with receiving free foods from organizations include reaching out to others that have connections in the neighborhood to spread the word of the types of resources there are in the community.

ashanti martin 0:03 Hello everyone, my name is Ashanti. Unknown Speaker 0:06 Hi, my name is Selassie. And this summer we were able to research the area of Bailey’s crossroads in Falls Church, Virginia, where we analyze social determinants of health in the community. Our project specifically highlights food insecurity and how Baliey’s crossroad community members can get connected with healthy foods as well as foods they will prefer to eat. Before we begin, we will give a brief introduction of ourselves and talk about the first aspect of our presentation. Selassie Fugar 0:32 Hello my name is Selassie Fugar, and I’m a sophomore at George Mason University. My major is business analytics. ashanti martin 0:40 My name is Ashanti Martin, and I’m also a rising sophomore here at Mason majoring in Business with a concentration in marketing. The first aspect of our presentation, we’re going to describe what food insecurity is. The US Department of Agriculture, also known as the USDA defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active healthy life. Food insecurity can been seen as food deserts and/or food swamps. Food deserts are areas where people have limited access to a variety of healthy and affordable food, Food swamps are environments saturated with unhealthy foods because of large number of corner stores and fast food outlets. Now that we were able to give a foundation of what food insecurity is, we can provide some statistics to show the effects of food insecurity Selassie Fugar 1:29 According to the Fairfax County Community Health Improvement Plan 2019 to 2023 Fairfax County despite its high per capita income has the highest number of individuals who are food insecure compared to any jurisdiction in Virginia. In the county nearly 1/3 of elementary school students received free or reduced price lunch, and in some areas of Fairfax County they experienced higher rates of insecurity. ashanti martin 1:54 Now we can take a deeper dive into Bailey’s Crossroad. 71% of community members reported they did not earn enough to cover basic needs. 46% skipped a meal or had reduced food portions. 88% of respondents do not have a valid driver’s license. 49% reported chronic health issues. And over the past 18 months, community based organizations have seen massive increases of food insecure community members. Now that we’ve been able to talk about the statistical portion, we can go into the organizations providing assistance for Bailey’s crossroads. Selassie Fugar 2:31 During our research, we discovered and interviewed a number of community based organizations and resources providing assistance for the community members in the area. Today we’ll be highlighting the organization into four topics and the first organizations of FFO or food for others. Food for others was established since 1995, and it constructs of these three distribution programs. It also provides recipe cards that are sourced from the capital area Food Bank. ashanti martin 3:01 The next organization is Grow a Row. Grow a Row is a community based organization dedicated to grow fresh produce. The organization supply seeds and a soil test kit to community members in the partnership is divided into different sections listed below. Selassie Fugar 3:24 The next portion will go into the school systems. Bailey’s elementary has created and raised garden beds that students and staff members manage. In addition, Bailey’s is a food for others care mobile site location. Justice High school has an ecology club that has donated excess food from their gardens to Grow a Row, and the food from the gardens are also shared with custodial staff members as well as the members of ecology club. ashanti martin 3:58 Finally, we’ll be talking about the faith groups in the area. The first faith group is Columbia Baptists, Columbia Baptists first pantry existed, has existed for 40 years. Their pantry serves over 200 families every Saturday and for donation efforts. The pantry has created Amazon and Target list as well as established partnerships with grocery stores and restaurants. The second is First Christian. First Christian has allowed food uniting neighbors also known as funds to establish gardens on the church campus. In addition, they also partner with Fall Church community center also known as FCS. Lastly, their program Safe Haven has provided grow, grabbed and grow lunches every Thursday. And lastly, we have the Islamic Center Dar al Hijrah. The Islamic Center has facilitated crowdfunding campaigns for food banks in eviction Prevention’s. In addition, they the USDA agricultural programs have donated free food to their center and they are also partnered with the Capital Area Food Bank Selassie Fugar 5:07 Conclusion food insecurity is a complex issue. And with the right steps, it can be prevented. Connections with different organizations do matter and the problem is how to connect people who are food insecure to these organizations conversations with the community members. And this analysis suggests us sharing data and the information. This analysis suggests sharing data and information to an easy accessible process to receiving free food that individuals want and need. These might be some ideas to consider in the future. ashanti martin 5:37 Thank you and that concludes our presentation.

For more on this topic see:

Significance of Different Cultures in the Bailey’s Culmore Area

Data Usage in Bailey’s Crossroads

Historical Framework of Bailey’s Crossroad

College of Humanities and Social Science College of Public Health Honors College Summer Team Impact Project

Significance of Different Cultures in the Bailey’s Culmore Area

Author(s): Indigo Kellum, Anagha Sreevals, Morgan Swindall

Mentor(s): Lisa Gring-Pemble, School of Business; Rebecca Sutter, School of Nursing; Anne Magro, School of Business; Charish Bishop, Kaulin Jennison, Graduate Assistants

This project aimed to look at the significance of culture in Bailey’s Culmore and how it impacted this specific area in Northern Virginia. At the beginning of this summer, we aimed to meet with Culmore residents and community partners to discuss barriers to health and the way that cultural norms and adjustments have affected these, but due to coronavirus concerns, we were unable to make it out into the community as much as we had hoped. We were still able to interact with community residents and partners, just not at the same frequency as would have been most beneficial to our research. Despite physical barriers to interacting with the community, we still had several online meetings each week with community partners and on occasion, some of us even got the chance to have them in-person. The information we have presented has been gathered from the combination of research methods (including traditional research involving searching databases and collecting information from written sources on the web). This group, as part of the overall team of “Wicked Boot Camp Summer Program”, specifically examined the issues of transportation, mental health, and physical health in Bailey’s Culmore.

Slide 1: Our presentation is on the significance of different cultures and how they impact different community barriers and problems in Bailey’s Culmore. Slide 2: These are the demographics that make up the Bailey’s Culmore region. Slide 3: Our group project focuses on the impact of cultures on the topics of transportation, mental health, and other forms of health and food security in Bailey’s Culmore. These are some examples of the presence of culture, but the main example revolves around how cultural identity can impact people during their daily lives. For instance, cultural identity can bring about stigma regarding mental health, so even if an individual needs and wants to use mental health resources, they are discouraged due to the stigma. Another example is how culture shock during resettlement and integration can prevent individuals from utilizing transportation resources and other resources provided by their community, due to again stigma around receiving help, but also more literal barriers such as lack of language translation. Slide 4: One of the things we learned this summer was that there exist things called social determinants of health. These are the social factors that affect the health of individuals and groups, but are often not thought of when considering traditional healthcare since they are the everyday factors that affect health. A few examples of social determinants of health are things like: food, housing, and transportation. Transportation is a social determinant of health because it affects access to adequate healthcare and health resources. “According to the 2018 National Health Interview Survey, 3.6 million U.S. residents delayed medical care due to the lack of transportation, 13 percent of whom were immigrants.” More broadly, transportation determines access to general goods, services, and jobs. transportation is a lifeline to the world that is deeply affected by U.S. histories, cultures, and migrants. Slide 5: In my research, I heard mentions that transportation services like Uber and lyft are quite popular in the region, but for those who can’t afford the daily fares of these larger companies, some opt for similar, but cheaper options called rideros. Rideros seem to be the smaller, cheaper, and more community-driven versions of Uber and Lyft. They are the communities’ way of solving the problem not yet resolved by the government. Slide 6: After meeting with several groups in the region and beyond, including the Fairfax County Department of Transportation, I feel ready to offer some possible suggestions for the community of members in Culmore to adopt who are looking for travel options around and outside of the Culmore region. One of these options is the Free Student Bus Pass Program which allows middle and high school students to travel within Fairfax County on the bus system for free and additionally for all of the community members in Culmore, I believe that they deserve to voice more of their concerns to the Fairfax County Department of Transportation. They could do so by petitioning or protesting, maybe even communicating directly with the Department of Transportation and asking for better bus stops and more sidewalks. Measures like these would allow the community to have a voice in the transportation systems that they are provided by the county. Slide 7: Due to the high population of immigrant and refugee communities in the area, there is a great need for care by mental health professionals. The community health assessment for the area determined through a survey that a majority of individuals rank mental health care as one of the top five needs in the community. However, even with availability of resources, there are barriers to seeking help, such as financial instability, lack of language translators, stigma and hesitancy, and most importantly, lack of culturally sensitive professionals who specialize in trauma-informed care. Some organizations do a needs-assessment on whether the client needs specialized mental health care, and then they are referred to a professional. Some organizations provide pro-bono counseling and care from professionals. However, there is still a great need for more to be done, especially in regards to the need for culturally sensitive and financially accessible mental health professionals with language skills. Slide 8: Community gardens are multipurpose. Its primary use of providing fresh produce supports a healthy diet. Communities experiencing socio-economic disparities may struggle to get access to healthier foods at a low cost. Food pantries are invaluable to families in need; however, not all distribution sites are capable of storing fresh produce. While canned goods have a longer shelf life and are easier to donate, they ultimately lack the nutrients that fresh fruits and vegetables contain. Making the necessary behavioral changes to address health concerns such as diabetes and high blood pressure, requires access to the right foods. Growing produce too enables people to maintain their cultural identity. This is especially important for Bailey’s Culmore because of its immigrant and refugee population. Community gardens should encourage people to hold onto their backgrounds. Culturally appropriate foods invoke familiarity and in turn a sense of security and self-respect. Attempting to change one’s values and practices in order to fit into a different society may lead to disconnect thus prolonging attempts to be fully established into the community. Growing familiar foods may give rise to finding others who eat the same or inspire some to learn about a new food culture thus building better relationships. Looking back at Bailey’s Culmore, initiatives can be enacted to better overall health and acknowledge the diversity that members of the community offer. There are existing gardens in the area so we can utilize them to encourage more community engagement expanding from the youth to the elderly. Current health programs, along with residents who enjoy cooking, could possibly hold weekend workshops that utilize the foods grown in the gardens. These workshops will both guide families into making healthier choices when cooking and incorporate ancestral recipes.

For more on this topic see:

Data Usage in Bailey’s Crossroads

Food Insecurity

Historical Framework of Bailey’s Crossroad

College of Science Summer Team Impact Project

Measuring the Changes in Sentiment and Emotion Towards COVID-19 Over Time in Tweets Posted from Within United States Counties

Author(s): Zachary Richardson

Mentor(s): Hamdi Kavak, Computational and Data Sciences; Taylor Anderson, Geography and Geoinformation Science; Andreas Zufle, Geography and Geoinformation Science; Amira Roess, Global and Community Health; Samiul Islam, Fahad Aloraini, Graduate Assistants

All mentors and contributors: Zachary Richardson, James Stassinos, Taylor Anderson, Amira Roess, Hamdi Kavak, Andreas Züfle The COVID-19 pandemic was a difficult time for the world and many people took to Twitter to discuss their thoughts and feelings towards COVID-19. Understanding the sentiment and emotions felt by a population can give insight on how the general public’s opinions are changing as the pandemic progresses. We can see trends in sentiment and discover if online behavior is an indicator of offline behavior in response to COVID-19. To begin our research, we used a dataset created by the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) that contains millions of tweets with enriched geolocation information attributed to each tweet. We first had to extract tweets posted within Fairfax County, then perform our own sentiment and emotion analysis. To calculate sentiment, we used the python library TextBlob to read the text within tweets and give it a score within the range -1 to 1 based on how negative or positive the attitude of text was. To measure emotion, we used the python library Text2Emotion to give tweets a percentage score based on the five emotions: happy, sad, angry, surprise, and fear. We aggregated the sentiment scores and emotion percentages by day from February 1st, 2020, to May 1st , 2020. We found that on average fear was the top emotion felt by Twitter users within Fairfax County, and the sentiment was fairly neutral. It is difficult to see any trends within Fairfax County alone, our future work will extend to every county within the United States.

00:04 hi my name is zachary richardson 00:06 and my name is james stasinos over the 00:08 summer james and i have been working on 00:10 our project 00:10 measuring changes in sentiment and 00:12 emotion towards coven 19 00:14 over time in tweets posted within united 00:16 states counties 00:20 the coven 19 pandemic was an 00:21 unprecedented time for the world and 00:23 caused many to develop strong feelings 00:25 towards the situation 00:26 many in the united states took to 00:28 twitter to discuss and share their 00:29 thoughts and emotions towards copenhagen 00:32 in our project we aimed to measure these 00:34 emotions and overall sentiment of kobe 00:36 19 00:36 through these tweets shared by users 00:38 within the united states 00:39 as the pandemic progressed to begin this 00:42 research we obtained a data set put 00:44 together by the qatar 00:45 computing research institute the data 00:48 set contained hundreds of millions of 00:50 dehydrated tweet ids 00:51 with enriched geolocation information 00:54 they had all been 00:56 the enriched geolocation information had 00:58 been obtained 00:59 using advanced machine learning 01:01 techniques to make predictions about 01:03 user location 01:05 based on information within the profile 01:09 [Music] 01:10 all the tweets were found by searching 01:12 for tweets mentioning coven 19 or covet 01:15 19 related keywords for example social 01:18 distancing or quarantine 01:23 we use the developer account to access 01:25 the twitter api 01:26 to hydrate the tweets obtained through 01:28 the qatar dataset 01:30 using the enriched geolocation 01:32 information we identified all the tweets 01:34 from the users located within fairfax 01:36 county 01:37 and we calculated the sentiment and the 01:39 emotion of those tweets 01:44 to measure the overall sentiment of the 01:46 tweets we use the python library called 01:48 textblob a natural language processor 01:51 that evaluates text data to determine 01:52 the tweet’s attitude 01:54 we use this library when reading the 01:56 text within the tweets and each tweet is 01:58 given a score within the range 01:59 negative one to one based on how 02:02 negative positive 02:03 or neutral the text was we aggregated 02:05 the average sentiment of every tweet 02:07 collected within fairfax county by day 02:09 within the time period of february 1st 02:11 2020 02:12 to may 1st 2020 and we discovered the 02:15 overall sentiment was fairly neutral at 02:17 the beginning of the pandemic 02:21 to measure a motion of the tweets we use 02:23 the python library called text 02:24 to emotion another natural language 02:27 processor that allows us to extract 02:29 five emotions from the text data those 02:31 emotions are happiness 02:32 anger sadness surprise and fear 02:35 each emotion is assigned a percentage 02:37 based on how much 02:38 that text corresponds to each of the 02:40 five emotions 02:42 we aggregated the average emotion score 02:44 received from each tweet collected 02:46 within fairfax county by day within the 02:48 time period of february 1st 02:50 2020 to may 1st 2020 and we discovered 02:52 the top emotion built by twitter users 02:54 in the early stages of the pandemic was 02:56 fear 02:57 followed closely by sadness and surprise 03:02 we are currently working on creating a 03:04 data set of sentiment and emotion for 03:06 all the covet 19 related tweets where 03:08 the user is located within the united 03:10 states 03:12 in addition the qatar computing research 03:14 institute team 03:15 will be publishing an updated covet 19 03:17 data set including more keywords 03:20 over a longer period of time during the 03:22 pandemic 03:24 which will include additional tweets 03:26 collected 03:28 we look forward to processing all that 03:30 additional data for sentiment and 03:31 emotion 03:32 to compare the different locations 03:34 sentiment and emotion 03:35 to learn about their different reactions 03:37 to the pandemic 03:38 as it forget as it progressed 03:44 thank you very much for viewing our 03:45 project uh we’d like to take this time 03:47 to acknowledge george mason university 03:49 office of provist 03:50 and the summer team impact project for 03:53 allowing us to conduct our research 03:54 uh we’re excited to see more results in 03:57 the future 03:58 thanks thank you

For more on this topic see:

Examining Different Disease Transmission Approaches in Data-Driven Agent-Based Models

Analyzing Changes in US Mobility Trends During 2020a

Spatio Temporal Prediction of Human Mobility