# Responding to Community Trauma: A Feasibility and Effectiveness Study of An Interdisciplinary Anti-Racist, Structurally Competent, and Culturally Responsive Assessment Model

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2024 · $246,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Children's community violence exposure (CVE) is a public health crisis, and racial and ethnic disparities
are well-documented. As a source of toxic stress, CVE can lead to poor mental and physical health outcomes,
disproportionately affects children in racially and economically segregated communities, and perpetuates
health disparities. Concentrated neighborhood disadvantage and limited access to youth services (in
combination with family and individual factors) influence and exacerbate disparities in CVE11-12. Over the past 7
years we have developed a novel, interdisciplinary, pediatric healthcare model that provides psychological and
psychiatric trauma-informed assessment, social work-focused case management, and treatment planning
across a short period (3-sessions) within a general medical center. Our target population are pediatric patients
and their families who are affected by community violence, whether or not they have been injured. The
University of Chicago Medicine REACT (Recovery & Empowerment After Community Trauma) Clinic4 is
a trauma-informed intervention focused on healing, rather than risk, to empower minoritized and systematically
oppressed CVE urban families. The REACT Clinic is located on Chicago’s South Side in one of the most
racially and economically segregated cities in the US.5-7 The REACT Clinic is innovative because it is the only
SAMHSA funded clinic in the US that provides Black youth, within the Chicago metropolitan area, with free,
accessible, high-quality, anti-racist, structurally and culturally responsive, strengths-based, interdisciplinary
care to specifically address effects of community violence and trauma. To date, the impact of the REACT
program has not been systematically evaluated.
 Both pilot data from REACT families and a robust prior literature8-10 suggest that the mechanisms most
associated with mental healthcare utilization (MHCU) are mental health stigma, healthcare distrust, and mental
health literacy. Thus, the objective of this two-year proposal is to systematically test whether the REACT Clinic
model is related to changes in the these three mechanisms after completion of services and at 3-month follow-
up. The study proposes a longitudinal, within-person, mixed-method approach to collect and analyze data from
a sample of 48 Black youth aged 12 -18 and their primary caregivers who have received REACT service
following CVE. The study has three goals: (1) employ a mixed methods design to examine acceptability,
feasibility, and adherence to the REACT Clinic model; (2) examine the impact of the REACT Clinic on proximal
outcomes (MHS, MHL, HCD) as reported by caregivers (n=48), at baseline, post-intervention, and at 3 month
follow-up; and 3) establish initial estimates of MHCU (distal outcome) and explore whether metrics of
acceptability and adherence and/or changes in proximal outcomes are associated with MHCU at 3-month
follow-up.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10952677
- **Project number:** 1R21MD019785-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Sonya J Dinizulu
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $246,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-16 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10952677

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10952677, Responding to Community Trauma: A Feasibility and Effectiveness Study of An Interdisciplinary Anti-Racist, Structurally Competent, and Culturally Responsive Assessment Model (1R21MD019785-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10952677. Licensed CC0.

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