Journey of Hope in Appalachia: Supporting Resilience in the Region's Youth (JOHA)

Rural youth have heightened exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACES) such as poverty, social isolation, chronic hunger, and drug use in the home. These threats can lead to downstream problems with emotion regulation, substance abuse, and heightened vulnerability to chronic disease. Resilience is the capacity to adapt positively in the face of such disadvantage. Youth resilience interventions can buffer the negative effects of ACES. Unfortunately, rural schools and other youth-serving agencies often have inadequate capacity to provide such interventions. Thus, there is a critical need to develop cost-effective, sustainable, and culturally-relevant youth resilience interventions that can be delivered by trained personnel with dedicated time and resources. WVU, UK, and Save The Children have a long-term goal to establish a sustained community-engaged research partnership to promote resilience in Appalachian youth. This is a community-based participatory research (CBPR)-guided study being conducted for the purpose of developing a culturally relevant, intervention to promote Appalachian youth resilience. The intervention, called Journey of Hope in Appalachia (JOHA), has as it's starting point Save The Children's evidence-based Journey of Hope (JOH) program that targets youth experiencing acute stress from natural disasters and similar events. This program will be culturally adapted to promote resilience among Appalachian youth experiencing ACES. JOHA will incorporate positive aspects of Appalachian culture (e.g., storytelling, theater, music) and will be designed for sustainability and eventual dissemination by Save through the Appalachian Translational Research Network (ATRN) and other regional Networks.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Adverse Childhood Experiences
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Focus groups

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Actual): 42

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Kentucky
    • Hazard, Kentucky, United States, 40536-0232
      • University of Kentucky, Center of Excellence in Rural Health
  • West Virginia
    • Morgantown, West Virginia, United States, 26506
      • West Virginia University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 10 years to 99 years (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Youth of Appalachia Kentucky and West Virginia and adults who are parents of youth or are stakeholders in the health and well-being of Appalachian youth.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Youth or adults who are residents of Appalachia
• Able to read and speak in English

Exclusion Criteria:

• Youth or adults who are not residents of Appalachia Kentucky or West Virginia
• Children under the age of 10

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Number of groups / cohorts

2

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort	Intervention / Treatment
Appalachian adults; Adults in Appalachia invested in well-being of youth.	Other: Focus groups; Focus groups will be conducted with adult stakeholders and with youth in Appalachia. Feedback from the focus groups will guide cultural tailoring of the Journey of Hope in Appalachia intervention for use in a later phase.
Appalachian youth; Youth from 7th through 12th grade.	Other: Focus groups; Focus groups will be conducted with adult stakeholders and with youth in Appalachia. Feedback from the focus groups will guide cultural tailoring of the Journey of Hope in Appalachia intervention for use in a later phase.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of themes	Number of themes that emerge from the focus group data useful for guiding cultural tailoring of the Journey of Hope in Appalachia intervention.	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Gia Mudd
• Collaborators: West Virginia University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Gia Mudd-Martin, PhD, University of Kentucky

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 1, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 22, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): March 22, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 18, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 18, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): September 20, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 25, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 23, 2022
• Last Verified: November 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Resilience; Community-based participatory research; Appalachian youth
• Other Study ID Numbers: 46776

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No