Intravenous drug usage can lead to multiple detrimental health related risks including the transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Hepatitis C, abscesses and infections, and drug related overdose. One of the most crucial interventions proven to reduce rates of these health risks among injection drug users is the syringe exchange program. This project examines the active syringe exchange programs in Humboldt County in order to explore the various practices, policies, and services offered by each. The ultimate goal for this project is to strengthen agency relationships, promote sharing of information and best practices, and maximize our ability to reach people in need.

This project incorporates peer-reviewed research and academic literature in developing a report of evidence-based curriculum for appropriate use in mental health treatment for incarcerated youth.

I developed a needs assessment for DHHS, North Coast AIDS Project. This was used to evaluate the needs of our clients and evaluate the program services that we provide. This assessment also helps to acquire any future funding for these services offered to Humboldt County residents living with HIV/AIDS.

This study examines the relationship between cannabis use (infrequent, moderate, and heavy use) and one’s mood (neutral, positive, and negative) on the Alternative Use Task (AUT). Although both mood and cannabis may influence creativity independently, not much is known about their interactive effects. Creativity was measured by the number of alternative uses for common objects produced by the participants. The AUT was followed by a survey that included cannabis use frequency and the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, which has been shown to represent an individual’s creative ability across multiple mediums.

The current study examined the association of stress, anxiety, hopelessness and social support in undergraduate Latino and White students. The sample included 250 Latino (women = 76%) and 296 White (women = 66%) participants, with more women in the Latino group (chi2 = 5.74, p < .05). For the total sample, a hierarchical linear regression with stress as the dependent variable, age and sex entered in block one and anxiety, social support, and hopelessness in block two, resulted in an R = .772 with block two variables accounting for 57% of the variance. Separate regression analyses for Latino and White students produced similar results, R = .75 and R = .80, respectively.

Social Workers commonly share that there is a lack of resources related to alcohol and drug treatment programs to refer clients to. Based on a review of alcohol and drug services available in the Northern CA region, I created a resource list on how to refer clients to a variety of alcohol and drug services including substance testing, assessment, and treatment in the region for Child Welfare Services. This resource list was developed to improve service delivery, identify services in the region, and to assist social workers in referring people who have court mandated alcohol and drug service requirements.

Individuals facing poverty and homelessness can be denied housing when care-taking for a companion animal. Sometimes a refusal of housing is caused by rules which prohibit companion animals in housing, so the preference is to remain homeless. My project provides a compilation of local, free, and low cost resources to help provide for the companion animal’s care. A needs assessment with persons facing long-term homelessness informed the list. The compilation will allow a person facing poverty to make informed choices among resources in the community that would facilitate a healthy human-companion animal relationship regardless of status of homelessness.

We found that not only did participants experiencing high self-uncertainty make fewer overall errors, but more interestingly, they demonstrated greater accuracy for self-relevant word-pairings than those low in uncertainty. This in turn affected reaction times pairing self-relevant vs. self-irrelevant words. This implies that uncertainty might not lead to cognitive load or distracted and heuristic processing. Instead, we suggest that uncertainty can create a motivated process with respect to self-relevant information, leading to more accurate judgments about the self, perhaps in an attempt to reduce uncertainty.

This study aims to address whether differences in spatial ability and memory will be found among those who have active lifestyles, inactive lifestyles, and those who play video games. Spatial ability was examined by having participants become familiarized and then tested on a 3-D computerized maze. Participants were tested on memory and spatial components when asked to recollect the spatial layout of the computerized map.

Speech is both auditory and visual. Both modalities can carry the same underlying (articulatory) information. This relationship serves cross-modal matching abilities in a variety of conditions, but to what extent is cross-modal matching ability mediated by abstract, cognitive processes, representations, and linguistic experience (e.g. lexicality or phonemic predictability)?