By Guest Author, 7/1/2021, positiveexperience.org/blog

Please introduce yourself and your work to our blog readers.

I am a health policy researcher whose work examines health disparities among rural and other vulnerable populations, with a primary focus on children. I am an assistant professor in the Arnold School of Public Health’s Department of Health Services Policy and Management at the University of South Carolina and deputy director of the Rural and Minority Health Research Center. My research has led to numerous leadership experiences: co-leading a federally funded research center, the Rural and Minority Health Research Center; serving as a board member of a national organization, the National Rural Health Association; and serving as principal investigator focused on rural health and child health. I am also the principal investigator for the evaluation of the Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs in South Carolina. With this grant, I work closely with community and state partners, such as The Children’s Trust of South Carolina, in the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

What about HOPE and positive childhood experiences (PCEs) interested you?

Childhood experiences, both positive and adverse, can affect the healthy development of children into adulthood. I had been writing on adverse childhood experiences for a few years when I attended the 2018 Montana Summer Institute. Dr. Sege was the keynote speaker talking about the other side of the coin: positive childhood experiences and how these could be leveraged to prevent, moderate, or mitigate adverse childhood experiences. This inspired me to begin to quantitatively examine the prevalence of PCEs.

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