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This commentary discusses strategies and models for engaging diverse community partnerships through the Youth of Color Needs Assessment, a community-based participatory research project that elevates the voices and experiences of homeless and unstably housed youth of color in King County, Washington. Building upon the lens and expertise of a young Community Advocate thrust into research, it explores the strengths of youth of color leadership and best practices for trauma-informed, relational support for youth leaders and focus group participants alike. These insights offer a youth-centered model for the field grounded in engagement, sustainability, and ethics for research within and for communities at the margins., Author(s): Sydney Pk [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) The Northwest Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian, and Gay Survivors of Abuse, , P. O. Box 18436, 98118, Seattle, WA, USA Introduction Violence [...]

Grassroots community efforts intuitively understand the physics of relationships-that you cannot interact with something or someone, even if that interaction is simply observation, without having an impact. Research shapes the way our lives are imagined. There's no way around it. But developing relationships with researchers or others who can help document and disseminate 'by and for' information can be challenging for grassroots and community led initiatives. When institutions seek to include marginalized community priorities into pre-existing frameworks or study initiatives, or when researchers come from the outside, extract information from our community organizations and grassroots efforts, and then leave to analyze and make meaning of it elsewhere, the result is never accurate and our own community led trajectories of learning are disrupted and undermined. From significant changes to how research collaborations are conceived and funded, to simple fixes to approaches used in the field, researchers can be better partners to community led efforts to document and understand our own lives., Author(s): Connie Burk [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) The NW Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian & Gay Survivors of Abuse, , P.O. Box 18436, 98118, Seattle, WA, USA Grassroots community efforts [...]

Objectives. The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in studies of Japanese show generally lower rates when compared with those of Caucasians. We hypothesized that among a cohort of Japanese Americans lifestyle differences would act to modify progression of the Alzheimer pathologic process over many years, resulting in a slower cognitive decline among persons whose lifestyle is more characteristically Japanese. Methods. One thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six nondemented persons were screened with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI) at baseline, and 1,604 were rescreened 2 years later. Baseline questions included migration status, exposure to Japanese culture in early life and maintenance of such culture in adulthood, and other risk factors. Cognitive decline was defined as a 2-year loss of [greater than or equal to]5.15 points/100 on CASI. Results. In multivariable logistic regression, variables relating to reading, writing, and speaking Japanese, being born or having lived in Japan in early life, and having friends who are only/mostly Japanese were inversely associated with cognitive decline (odds ratios ranged between 0.28 and 0.64, with p < .05). Two factors emerged in a factor analysis of these variables. The strongest explained 49% of the variance for acculturation and loaded heavily on knowledge of the Japanese language and having spent one's early years in Japan. When this factor was dichotomized into the top 20th percentile, it predicted cognitive decline with an odds ratio of 0.12 (95% CI 0.03-0.49). Discussion. These results show that a Japanese lifestyle may decrease the risk of expressing cognitive decline over a 2-year follow-up period. Lower cardiovascular disease rates among Japanese may also predispose them to lower rates of cognitive decline. The greater social support characteristic of Japanese culture as well as the role that Japanese language and culture may play in neural connectivity during brain development and/or in mental stimulation in adult life may also explain our findings.