Examining Anti-Racist Healing in Nature to Protect Telomeres of Transitional Age BIPOC for Health Equity.

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Deaths from chronic diseases are disproportionately higher in communities of color. This is expected given the well-documented health inequities in the United States caused by centuries-old underinvestment in their wellness. To begin to redress this underinvestment during an economic crisis requires cost-effective, low- resource interventions. It also requires community engagement to ensure uptake and sustainability. Therefore, we propose to undertake community-prioritized research that will engage ancestral knowledges from different communities of color in a multilevel effort to address growing health disparities via intersectoral collaborations. The overall goal of our transformative Reclaiming Nature project is to reduce growing health disparities in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities through examination of culturally-appropriate interventions. These are aimed at reducing embodied stress in transitional-age BIPOC so as to prevent their development of chronic diseases as adults. The development of chronic diseases has been linked to the embodiment of stress through biological processes that include cortisol dysregulation and telomere erosion. In fact, emerging research from several research groups, including our own, finds that erosion of telomere in communities of color is accelerated. This is likely due to racism and discrimination that increase chronic stress and limits access to the social determinants of health (e.g., employment, education, housing). We thus aim to reduce embodied stress through increased access to what can be considered a social determinant of health – equitable access to physical activity in public parks. The proposed work is grounded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) Research Framework, and is enabled by strong partnerships between academic and community researchers, public and private outdoor specialists, and government leaders. They are brought together to extend the work of the Roadmap to Peace initiative. In 2013 this initiative was borne out of a community call to action following the shooting deaths of several Latinx teens. Historically it has aimed to engage youth in healthy and healing relationships, and currently leads “La Cultura Cura” (Culture Heals) efforts to engage BIPOC youth (through racial/ethnic sister initiatives) in healthy and healing relationships with, and within, nature. This aligns with the efforts of partnering outdoor specialists to increase park visits by BIPOC communities, and with the research focus for the proposed work. Thus, a key innovation of the proposed work is a community-prioritized, intersectoral, multilevel approach for implementing and testing a healing intervention in nature by insider researchers committed to building sustainable systems change. The insider researchers come from the communities being recruited to the intervention. They are committed to examining the culture of four different communities (Black, Latinx, Pilipinx, and Pacific Islander) to test and institutionalize ideas for systems change as part of transformative research for health equity.