News and Stories

The Center for Community Health is excited to share our contribution to a new publication in Frontiers in Public Health titled “Integrating qualitative insights with large secondary data: a protocol for a community‑engaged mixed‑methods study on adolescent substance use.” This study presents an innovative approach to understanding the social, environmental, and community factors that influence substance use and cognitive development among adolescents in neighborhoods with unequal opportunities. 

Led by Dr. Kazi Priyanka Silmi and our partner Dr. Marybel Gonzalez, with co-authors from academic and community organizations, the paper describes a community‑engaged mixed-methods approach that combines in-depth interviews with large-scale datasets from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. By centering the lived experiences of vulnerable adolescents, this approach helps identify structural and neighborhood-level factors that impact health outcomes, knowledge critical for designing effective public health interventions and policies. 

This study also highlights a strong collaborative partnership between CCH, our Youth Advancement Collective (YAC), and Dr. Gonzalez through the Substance Use and Neurocognition Equity (SUN-E) Lab at Ohio State University. YAC members have participated as paid research interns and consultants, providing feedback on study materials and learning about National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded programs investigating social determinants of health (SDOH) and their influence on youth living in urban areas. This partnership exemplifies how youth engagement can strengthen research while fostering skills, knowledge, and leadership in the next generation of public health professionals. 

CCH contributed our expertise in building and sustaining community partnerships, ensuring that youth and community voices are meaningfully included throughout the research process. This work demonstrates how public health research can advance population health outcomes by integrating community perspectives with rigorous data analysis, ultimately supporting healthier environments for adolescents. 

Click below to read the full article: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1664492/full