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CONTEXT: In order to create a more diverse workforce, there is a need to involve historically excluded youth in public health-related work. Youth involvement in asset-based work experience approaches is especially relevant for rural areas with workforce shortages. OBJECTIVE: To explore the public health workforce development implications of community-based career exploration and asset mapping work experience from the perspective of Black youth. DESIGN: We used qualitative in-depth interviews with youth, aged 14 to 22 years, who participated in a work experience program anchored in several rural counties in southeastern United States. A phenomenological lens was applied for qualitative analyses with iterative, team-based data coding. Participants were also surveyed pre- and postprogram to supplement findings. PROGRAM: A rural community-based organization's work experience program consisted of 2 tracks: (1) Youth Connect-a career exploration track that included work placement within community agencies; and (2) MAPSCorps-a track that employs youth to conduct asset mapping for their community. RESULTS: We interviewed 28 of 31 total participants in the 2 tracks. We uncovered 4 emergent profiles in how youth described shifts in their perceptions of community: (1) Skill Developers; (2) Community Questioners; (3) Community Observers; and (4) Community Enthusiasts. In comparing between tracks, youth who participated in work experience that involved asset mapping uniquely described increased observation and expanded view of community resources and had greater increases in research self-efficacy than youth who participated only in career exploration. CONCLUSION: Asset mapping work experience that is directly placed in rural communities can expose Black youth to and engage them in essential public health services (assessing and mobilizing community assets) that impact their community. This type of program, directly integrated into rural communities rather than placed near academic centers, could play a role in creating a more diverse public health workforce.

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Public health scholarship has increasingly called for the use of system science approaches to understand complex problems, including the use of participatory engagement to inform the modeling process. Some system science traditions, specifically system dynamics modeling, have an established participatory practice tradition. Yet, there remains limited guidance on engagement strategies using other modeling approaches like agent-based models. Our objective is to describe how we engaged adolescent youth in co-building an agent-based model about physical activity. Specifically, we aim to describe how we communicated technical aspects of agent-based models, the participatory activities we developed, and the resulting visual diagrams that were produced. We implemented six sessions with nine adolescent participants. To make technical aspects more accessible, we used an analogy that linked core components of agent-based models to elements of storytelling. We also implemented novel, facilitated activities that engaged youth in the development, annotation, and review of graphs over time, geographical maps, and state charts. The process was well-received by the participants and helped inform the basic structure of an agent-based model. The resulting visual diagrams created space for deeper discussion among participants about patterns of daily activity, important places for physical activity, and interactions between social and built environments. This work lays a foundation to develop and refine engagement strategies, especially for translating qualitative insights into quantitative model specifications such as 'decision rules'.

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Across disciplines, it is common practice to bring together groups to solve complex problems. Facilitators are often asked to help groups organize information about and better understand the problem in order to develop and prioritize solutions. However, despite existence of several methods to elicit and characterize how individuals and groups think about and conceptualize an issue, many are difficult to implement in practice-based settings where resources such as technology and participant time are limited and research questions shift over time. This paper describes an easy-to-implement diagramming technique for eliciting conceptualization and a flexible network analysis method for characterizing changes in both individual and group conceptualization. We use a case example to illustrate how we used the methods to evaluate African American adolescent's conceptual understanding of obesity before and after participating in a series of four systems thinking workshops. The methods produced results that were sensitive to changes in conceptualization that were likely driven by the specific activities employed during the workshop sessions. The methods appear strong for capturing salient levels of conceptualization at both individual and collective levels. The paper concludes with a critical examination of strengths and weaknesses of the methods and implications for future practice and research.

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Engaging youth from racial and ethnic minority communities as leaders for change is a potential strategy to mobilize support for addressing childhood obesity, but there are limited curricula designed to help youth understand the complex influences on obesity. Our aim was to develop and pilot test a systems science curriculum to elicit rural African American youth perspectives on childhood obesity and enhance their understanding of and support for obesity prevention solutions. The curriculum was designed so it could be integrated with existing positive youth development curricula that help youth advocate for and implement identified solutions. We conducted four workshop sessions with youth that engaged them in systems learning activities such as guided systems diagramming activities. The participants ( n = 21) completed validated surveys presession and postsession that assessed their causal attributions of obesity and support for obesity prevention policies. The youths' perception that environmental factors cause obesity increased ( p < .05), and perceptions that individual behavior and biology cause obesity did not change. Their support for policies that addressed food access and food pricing significantly increased ( p < .05). The youths' system diagrams elucidated links between multilevel factors such as personal attitudes, social influence, and the built environment, which provides important information for designing synergistic solutions. The changes we observed in youths' perceptions of obesity and support for policy changes have important implications for youths' interest and willingness to advocate for social and environmental changes in their community. The strategies have a promising role in supporting community mobilization to address childhood obesity.

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PURPOSE: Parents and caregivers play an important role in sexual socialization of youth, often serving as the primary source of information about sex. For African American rural youth who experience disparate rates of HIV/sexually transmitted infection, improving caregiver-youth communication about sexual topics may help to reduce risky behaviors. This study assessed the impact of an intervention to improve sexual topic communication. DESIGN: A Preintervention-postintervention, quasi-experimental, controlled, and community-based trial. SETTING: Intervention was in 2 rural North Carolina counties with comparison group in 3 adjacent counties. SUBJECTS: Participants (n = 249) were parents, caregivers, or parental figures for African American youth aged 10 to 14. INTERVENTION: Twelve-session curriculum for participating dyads. MEASURES: Audio computer-assisted self-interview to assess changes at 9 months from baseline in communication about general and sensitive sex topics and overall communication about sex. ANALYSIS: Multivariable models were used to examine the differences between the changes in mean of scores for intervention and comparison groups. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences in changes in mean scores for communication about general sex topics ( P < .0001), communication about sensitive sex topics ( P < .0001), and overall communication about sex ( P < .0001) existed. Differences in change in mean scores remained significant after adjusting baseline scores and other variables in the multivariate models. CONCLUSIONS: In Teach One Reach One intervention, adult participants reported improved communication about sex, an important element to support risk reduction among youth in high-prevalence areas.

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Southeastern states are among the hardest hit by the HIV epidemic in this country, and racial disparities in HIV rates are high in this region. This is particularly true in our communities of interest in rural eastern North Carolina. Although most recent efforts to prevent HIV attempt to address multiple contributing factors, we have found few multilevel HIV interventions that have been developed, tailored or tested in rural communities for African Americans. We describe how Project GRACE integrated intervention mapping (IM) methodology with community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles to develop a multilevel, multigenerational HIV prevention intervention. IM was carried out in a series of steps from review of relevant data through producing program components. Through the IM process, all collaborators agreed that we needed a family-based intervention involving youth and their caregivers. We found that the structured approach of IM can be adapted to incorporate the principles of CBPR.

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BACKGROUND: The HIV epidemic is a major public health problem in the United States, particularly among rural African American adolescents and young adults. OBJECTIVES: We sought to explore young, rural African American's perspectives about key programmatic components to consider when designing youth-targeted, community- based HIV prevention interventions. METHODS: We report data from four focus groups with adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 24 (n = 38) conducted as part of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project designed to develop multilevel HIV risk reduction interventions in two rural North Carolina communities with high HIV rates. Analysis was performed by academic and community partners using a modified grounded theory approach to content analysis. RESULTS: Interventions should target preadolescents and early adolescents rather than older adolescents and young adults in an effort to "catch them while they're young." Intervention developers should obtain input from local young people regarding critical programmatic components, such as whom to employ as study recruiters and intervention leaders; intervention format and delivery options, acceptable recruitment and intervention locations, and incentive structures. Participants believe selecting community collaborators representing varied community sectors is critical. Important barriers to address included limited transportation, discomfort communicating about sexual issues, lack of community interest in HIV prevention, and unwillingness to acknowledge and address sexual activity among adolescents. CONCLUSION: When designing HIV/AIDS prevention interventions, targeting young people, it is important to form academic-community partnerships that ensure young people's perspectives are integral to the intervention development process.

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