CCTS CATS Affiliate Scholar, Dr. Mayra Guerrero, is using mixed methods approaches to explore how community-based supports and social networks can aid the recovery process for those with substance use disorders.
Mayra Guerrero, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
UIC College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
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The University of Illinois Chicago Center for Clinical and Translational Science is supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1TR002003. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
0:00 Dr. Mayra Guerrero
When we look at rates of substance use disorders across race and ethnicity, there aren't big differences in terms of prevalence, but where we see the greatest disparities is in terms of treatment utilization, so access to treatment and also treatment outcomes.
0:22 Voice Over (VO), Lauren:
Welcome to Collaborative Endeavors, a podcast about how experts from different areas of research come together to tackle big health challenges, leading to better therapies and healthier communities.
In this episode, we meet Dr. Mayra Guerrero, assistant professor of psychology in UIC’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. During her doctoral training in community psychology at DePaul University, Dr. Guerrero began examining community interventions for mental health promotion in veterans returning from service. This led to a curiosity in the ways in which community-based supports and social networks can aid the recovery process, specifically for those with substance use disorders. Now as a CCTS Clinical and Translational Science Affiliate Scholar, Dr. Guerrero is exploring this question as part of her mentored career development project.
1:14 Dr. Guerrero:
I proposed a project that is examining how individuals recover from substance use disorders. Specifically, how do they develop what we call recovery capital, which are internal and external factors that promote individual’s recovery. So individual factors can be things such as how they perceive their own abilities to recover, so self-efficacy, right? And then external recovery factors could be, what kind of social supports are available to them? What kind of supportive networks are they affiliated to, as well as what kind of neighborhood level factors can promote their recovery or even hinder their recovery?
I have a particular interest in investigating how minoritized communities and populations recover. And so, my project is investigating how ethnic and racial minority communities access and develop recovery capital, looking specifically at neighborhood level and also looking at their social networks. One of the areas that we look at on recovery capital is that we don't really understand much about it when it comes to racial and ethnic minoritized individuals in recovery, and that is such an important need that we have. Because when we look at rates of substance use disorders across race and ethnicity, there aren't big differences in terms of prevalence, but where we see the greatest disparities is in terms of treatment utilization, so access to treatment and also treatment outcomes, right?
In terms of neighborhood level, we see that individuals that are in neighborhoods that are disadvantaged, that lack of resources, have poor recovery outcomes, right? What I'm interested in seeing is what kind of other neighborhood level factors hinder recovery or also can promote it. So, do they have access to treatment centers in their own communities? Do they have easy access to mutual help support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous? Do they have other types of community levels supports that can promote their recovery, such as access to religious communities, for example? And so, this project really hopes to be able to shed light into what can be done about addressing those health disparities that we see for individuals in recovery. The long-term goal is to use this information to develop a community intervention that can better support individuals in their journeys. The way that I plan to do this is by integrating different types of multi-level and mixed methods in in my data collection. So one thing that I'll be doing is in order to capture kind of those neighborhood level factors and effects is doing geographic information systems, where I'm able to map out where individuals are located, where they typically frequent, and what types of resources are located in their actual lived space and physical environment, as well as doing something called social network analysis, where I'll be able to collect data from individuals and their own personal networks, and seeing who they typically affiliate with. Are these individuals considered supportive of their recovery journeys? Are they with individuals that are currently using and may make it more difficult for them to sustain or even engage in their in their recovery process?
5:30 VO:
Dr. Guerrero elaborated on the ways in which this project will apply key principles of community based participatory research to achieve its goals.
5:43 Dr. Guerro
This project is very community based, very participatory. I'm going to have individuals engage in qualitative interviews and also use something called Photo Voice, which allows individual participants to take pictures of their where the places that they frequent in their neighborhoods. One of the great things about the Photo Voice technique is that when you assign the participants their Photo Voice assignment, we'll be able to give them particular prompts that address the questions asked of them during the qualitative interviews. And so, it's really the visual representations of their responses to the qualitative questions. From there, when you're analyzing the qualitative information and you start to develop your themes, you will use the images to be the visual representations for those themes. It's such a great way of really incorporating participant voices, both orally through the qualitative interviews, and also through the visuals. And can capture things that maybe you wouldn't otherwise have if you were just conducting qualitative interviews. So, I think it has participants really reflect about these questions, about their everyday lives and the places that they frequent, and how those impact their recovery journeys and trajectories. I'm also engaging with a community advisory board to provide feedback on the development of the research project from the beginning to the very end. I'm going to engage with the community advisory board to figure out logistics, recruitment, where different sites that would be best to tap into the communities that I hope to engage with in this project. Also, the type of questions that we will be asking of participants: is it culturally sensitive? Does it respect their recovery journey and use sensitive language? All of those considerations.
8:45 VO:
At UIC, Dr. Guerrero has a robust mentor team, including distinguished professor in psychology, Dr. Robin Mermelstein, and Dr. Yamile Molina, associate professor in the division of community health sciences in the school of public health. I asked her to describe how this team is helping her develop the skills required of an interdisciplinary translational scientist.
9:09 Dr. Guerrero:
The reason that I selected them as my mentors is because I think that they both will equally help me gain specific skills. I have a background in doing social network analysis and methods and also doing a lot of qualitative work, and in quant as well. But my really big missing piece is developing as a mixed method researcher. So combining those two areas of my research is one area that I'm hoping to improve. And both mentors have tons of experience in both. I'm also hoping to continue to develop has a community engaged researcher and doing health related research that's community based participatory and developing relationships with a community advisory board. Developing in those areas are some of the big reasons that I tapped both Drs. Mermelstein and Molina, as well.
10:30 VO:
Dr. Guerrero and I discussed the ways in which the translational science methods underpinning her study could be applied to other research seeking to improve the recovery journey. She talked about how the concept of recovery can apply to a variety of physical and mental health conditions- from substance abuse to coping with past trauma to cancer survivorship. This desire to examine how social networks and community supports can best support an individual’s recovery is what drives Dr. Guerrero as a community-based, mixed methods health researcher.
11:02 Dr. Guerrero:
What I'm hoping for my time in the CATS program, is to really take what I learned from this project to develop a NIH R01 grant that will be used to develop a community intervention that helps individuals in recovery. I already see a trajectory and a long-term plan for this work, and also for myself, continuing to develop as a community engaged health researcher that has very strong mixed methods expertise, and also engages in various different community participatory methods. I think by the end of the program, I'll be able to really take my work to the next level, which allows me to really understand the multiple levels of influences on health and well-being for marginalized populations and promote the voices of individuals with lived experiences, which I think is very, very important.
12:22 Voice Over:
Collaborative Endeavors is written and produced by me, Lauren Rieger, on behalf of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (AKA the CCTS) at the University of Illinois Chicago. To learn more about Dr. Mayra Guerrero and the CCTS’s KL2 CATS and CATS affiliate program, visit the links in our show notes.
The CCTS is supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Science through their Clinical and Translational Science Award. Opinions expressed by guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself, the CCTS or our funding agencies.
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