Programs and Communities

Women in recovery from substance use disorders (SUD) face significant barriers to achieving reproductive well-being (RWB) and disproportionately experience unintended pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy can have serious consequences in this population. Equity-informed approaches promote the integration of reproductive health care (RHC) with recovery programs to improve both access to and quality of RHC. Arizona’s largest SUD recovery program, Crossroads, Inc. recently opened an on-site, integrated primary clinic offering RHC. A one-month pilot demonstration of One Key Question (OKQ), a pregnancy desire screening tool, was implemented with fidelity at Crossroads to identify clients with RHC needs and offer care.

IRB exempt status was obtained through Arizona State University. All female-bodied clients aged 18-49 were screened following routine admission assessments. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim model based on Self-Determination Theory and Motivational Interviewing was used to prioritize client autonomy. The client experience of care was measured using an adapted Interpersonal Quality of Family Planning scale. The magnitude of needs and desires were summarized with descriptive statistics. Sixty-three clients were screened with OKQ. Needs were identified in 97% of clients. Of those clients, 98% accepted referrals. Ninety percent of items measuring the client experience of care were rated as “excellent.” OKQ provided an efficient structure for person-centered screening and referral conversations to integrate RHC in a large SUD recovery program with excellent care experiences reported by clients.

Maria is a United States citizen whose parents just recently obtained legal status in the US due to Maria having turned 21. Maria has been around the undocumented population her entire life due to a large part of her family being undocumented. She became very involved with the undocumented movement back in 2010 with the passing of SB1070 in Arizona. She states that the reason she became so involved at this time was because she realized how these anti-immigrant laws were affecting her family and her community. She has worked on many campaigns at the local level such as the recall of Russell Pierce, the Adios Arpaio Campaign among other things. She is set to graduate from ASU this May 2015 with a degree in Political Science and Transborder Studies, and hopes to study law one day. She currently works with Unite Here a labor union and continues to be involved with varies campaigns some being DACA/DAPA information sessions among other things

In her interview, Monica discusses her association with the Grassroots Leadership Organization and her involvement with DreamZone. She talks about why DreamZone is important and why she is politically inclined. She talks about DreamZone’s Clinton Global Initiative campaign and her involvement at the White House breakout sessions after DACA was signed. She has been involved in sit-ins and letter writing campaigns

Jonathan was born in a small farming town in Maryland. He talks about racism, segregation and the homophobic climate that prevailed in his hometown, and how that informed his activism and that of his parents. During middle school, he got involved in activism around queer youth of color. In the beginning, he was mostly involved in LGBT issues. Later, he also organized around economic injustice in peasant and working class communities.

Dulce attended school in Mexico up until junior high before coming to the United States on a visa. While in high school she became involved with the robotics team at Carl Hayden and thanks to the encouragement by her two teacher she decided to pursue a STEM education at ASU. She was enrolled at ASU already when the law passed and was unaware of any other undocumented student at the ASU campus at the time. It was through the scholarship(s) that were made available to these undocumented student who were already enrolled at ASU that these undocumented students connected. What originally started off as students discussing various topics through blackboard, then google drive, led to the founding of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition (ADAC). She is co-founder for the ADAC and was the acting president for 2 years, now she just volunteers whenever she can, currently running for a position in the upcoming Executive board. She graduated from ASU with a degree in mechanical engineering, but is currently has her own business as a real estate agent for the past 10 years. She is in the process of applying for citizenship.

In his interview, Seth discusses his hometown as well as his study abroad experiences. He describes how he has come to learn about the undocumented youth movement and his role in the DreamZone workshop. He talks about current political reform and his involvement in political discussion in person and on social media. He describes his experience with AZ Quip and how he feels it is included.

Jesus went to Gadsden High School in Anthony, New Mexico. He studied engineering at Texas A&M University, but ended up changing his major to journalism and mass communication with an emphasis in pubic relations. He worked in housing residential education for about a year in Florida, but later moved to Arizona State University to pursue a PHD in education policy and evaluation. Through his work with students and the community, he became aware of the political and social issues in Arizona. This awareness eventually led him and a friend to create DREAMzone.

Jesus is involved with DREAMzone, the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (Q.U.I.P.), Arcoíris Liberation Team, and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement (California). He was president of the Latino Graduate Student Alliance and is currently the vice-president of the Graduate & Professional Student Association.

Purpose: This project examined the effectiveness of an online educational module on basic Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques for Nurse Practitioners (NPs) providing obesity management to middle-aged women.

Background: Middle-aged women experience distinct physiological and psychosocial factors that contribute to weight gain and make obesity management especially challenging. The evidence supports the use of motivational interviewing (MI) interventions as a highly effective approach to obesity management in combination with standard medical weight loss programs. Educating NPs that provide medical weight loss on basic MI counseling techniques is necessary to facilitate the use of this intervention.

Methods: NP providers at a group of seven medical weight loss clinics in the southwestern United States completed an online MI educational module that was developed for this project. The module content covered basic MI counseling techniques. MI knowledge was assessed using a 6-item pre/post-test. Participants completed an 8-item course evaluation to provide additional feedback.

Results: Ten of the 13 NPs eligible participated in the project. The overall response to the project was positive as demonstrated by high scores on the course evaluation. The average post-test knowledge scores increased after completion of the module, however no statistical significance was noted.

Conclusions: The basic MI education module was beneficial for NPs providing obesity management and future research should focus on developing standardized MI weight loss interventions.

One in every three deaths in the United States results from cardiovascular disease (CDC, 2013). Cardiovascular Rehabilitation (CR) is a medically supervised program designed to help improve cardiovascular health for patients who have experienced heart attack, heart failure, angioplasty, or heart surgery (AHA, 2016). A hospital in the southwestern region of the United States of America reports their 2016 CR attendance rate of 79 %, which is much lower than the national average of 94% (AACVPR, 2016). Motivational interviewing (MI) is a proven method used to promote a positive behavior change for cardiac rehab patients. MI includes quality improvement activities such as peer support and cardiac rehab educational classes that have shown to increase health related quality of life measures and decreased depression symptoms (Pietrabessa et al., 2017; Pack et al., 2013).

Despite all the knowledge about CR and its benefits for health nationally, there are low attendance rates, therefore the purpose of this evidence-based project is to improve CR attendance rates using MI. Patients enrolled into CR participated in the motivational interviewing for eight classes. At the end of the class, they were given notecards to create Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Timely (SMART) Goals for themselves for that week. The measurement tools, the PHQ-9 and Dartmouth COOP is a simple, reliable, and valid tool for assessing functional status of cardiac patients and the current CR program utilizes this tool and is familiar with explaining this tool (Eaton, Young, Fergussion, Garrett, & Kolbe, 2005).

A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for the relationship between the MI classes and the CR attendance, depression scores, and quality of life. A strong positive correlation was found (r (82)= .456, p< .001) indicating a significant linear relationship between motivational interviewing and cardiac rehab attendance. A weak correlation that was not significant for depression symptoms and quality of life. The impact of this evidence-based project is to give cardiac rehab programs further evidence that the implementation of motivational interviewing can positively influence cardiac rehab attendance rates.