What can mindfulness do for people who experience stigma, mental health challenges, and health disparities? In this seminar, Dr. Shufang Sun, Assistant Professor of Brown University of Public Health Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, presented findings of several clinical studies generated by her research team at Brown University School of Public Health, "Mindfulness for Health Equity Lab (mHEAL)," including studies with young sexual minority men with depression and anxiety at risk for HIV/STI, and sexual minority women with experiences of early life adversity and eating-related concerns.
Dr. Sun discussed the implications of this work in addressing mental health and promoting optimal health outcomes via mindfulness and stigma reduction strategies.
Shufang Sun
Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Associate Director of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
Dr. Sun's scholarship is motivated by understanding the role of minority stress (i.e., stigma, discrimination, structural oppression) in health disparities, and developing and evaluating mindfulness-based, community-centered, and technology-mediated interventions for health promotion with historically marginalized communities. Examples of her work include the development and evaluation of Mindfulness-based Queer Resilience (MBQR) for young sexual and gender minorities, mindfulness to address healthy eating among sexual minority women with a history of early life adversity, and understanding the role of mindfulness for glucose management and diabetes prevention among people with gestational diabetes. These interventions share the principles of addressing stigma and oppression via an awareness- and empowerment-based approach, attending to the interplay of mental health and health behaviors, mixed methods research and community-engaged research to inform intervention development, and employing internet-and mobile-based delivery to reduce barriers and increase accessibility and scalability. Her intervention research has engaged communities in the U.S. and Low-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). Read more...
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