The Triune God has always championed the cause of those who are oppressed. Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension display the perfect embodiment of social justice. #BlackOutTuesday was one of the largest online social justice demonstrations to date. The proceeds of #BlackoutTuesday and the overwhelming lack of follow-up action after the event provide a window into current activism and the ways in which historic patterns are still prevalent despite the veneer of increased awareness. While current patterns of activism may commonly stop at a black square, the call of Christ invites his followers to move beyond such performative actions into true anti-racist action. This article aims to apply the integration of psychology and theology to modern-day social justice issues using three perspectives that center allyship, false hope, and amplifying silenced voices through the lens of the impetus for #BlackoutTuesday, its misrepresentation in the media, and its actual impact and fallout.

This study explored the relationship between existing community resources and community leaders’ perceptions of resilience and rural health during COVID-19. Observational data of material capitals (e.g., grocery stores and physical activity resources) present in five rural communities involved in a health promotion project were collected and compared with key informant interviews of perceived community health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis compares the differences in community leaders’ perceptions of resilience during the pandemic to the actual material capitals of the community. While these rural counties were average in terms of available physical activity and nutritional resources, the onset of the pandemic led to varying degrees of disruption in access due to structural closures of mainstay resources, as well as residents perceiving that they cannot or should not access available resources. In addition, county coalition progress was stalled as individuals and groups could not gather together to complete projects, such as building playground equipment. This study demonstrates that existing quantitative instruments, such as NEMS and PARA, fail to take into account perceived access and utility of resources. Therefore, practitioners should consider multiple ways to evaluate resources, capacity, and progress on a health intervention or program and consider community voice to ensure feasibility, relevance, and sustainability—especially when faced with a public health emergency like COVID-19.

Community gardens are increasing in popularity and are associated with extensive physical and mental health benefits, increased access to fresh produce, and increased social connections. However, evidence is primarily from research in urban and school settings, and little is known about the role of community gardens in rural settings as part of policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes to promote health. This study explores the implementation of community gardens as part of an obesity prevention project, titled Healthier Together (HT), in five rural Georgia counties with limited food access and high obesity prevalence (>40%) using a mixed-methods research design that included data from project records, a community survey, interviews, and focus groups with county coalition members. Nineteen community gardens were implemented across five counties, 89% distributed produce direct to consumers, and 50% were integrated into the food system. Few (8.3%) of the survey respondents (n = 265) identified gardens as a food source, but 21.9% reported using an HT garden in the past year. Themes emerging from interviews (n = 39) and five focus groups suggested community gardens were a catalyst for broader community health change by increasing awareness of the value and absence of healthy food and generating excitement for future PSE initiatives to more comprehensively address food and physical activity access. Practitioners should consider placement of rural community gardens to optimize access to and distribution of produce as well as communication and marketing strategies to increase engagement and leverage gardens as gateways for PSE approaches to improve rural health.

The objective of the HEROs Study (HEalthy EnviROnments Study) is to develop a technology-based, interactive family intervention to promote healthy lifestyles and weight outcomes for young children in the family setting. Description: The project aims to improve family routines and parent-child eating and physical activity (PA) interactions. Research activities will be conducted through four key objectives: formative research; intervention design; intervention testing; and education. Evaluation: Year 3 focused on completion of the formative research and initialization of intervention design and plans for intervention testing. Parents and caregivers provided input on four key topic areas: food behaviors and environments (mealtime environment survey, n = 120; remote food photography method, n = 31 parentchild dyads; parent focus group, n = 7 groups, 29 participants); physical activity behaviors and environments (parent interview and parent practices survey; n = 31); mobile device use (results reported in Year 2); and daily life (ecocultural family interview; n = 30). A mixed methods approach is being utilized to synthesize findings from quantitative and qualitative assessments to provide a holistic understanding of participant behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and values related to each topic area. Intervention mapping is being employed as a framework to integrate formative research findings alongside theory, findings from the literature and previous research outcomes to design the HEROs intervention. Year 3 also included the development and testing of prototypes of nutrition and physical activity mobile applications that will serve as key intervention components. Conclusions and Implications: The HEROs intervention map will be used as a framework for intervention development. Subsequently in Year 4, an implementation study will be conducted utilizing the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) framework to test intervention components with a subset of families. Intervention module cycles will be studied to understand which of the key intervention components resonates with and drives participants towards behavior change. Funding: 2015-68001-23240.