PRADAA in the News

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett featured in The New York Times!

This article asked psychologists to offer tools to help young adults navigate a “quarterlife crisis." Dr. Neal-Barnett offered advice informed by her anxiety research.

Read it here!!

OBMHC May Virtual Discussion will delve into the trauma faced by Black mothers and birthing people.

Groundwork Ohio's Center for Maternal & Young Child Health led an in-depth virtual conversation on maternal mental health and the relationship between maternal mental health and maternal mortality.

Dr. Angela featured in A Magazine


Kent State program that focuses on traumatic stress to reduce infant mortality receives grant

'You are enough': Kent State professor leads effort to improve care for Black moms, babies

The Psychological Impact of the Dual Pandemic

Angela Neal researches anxiety disorders among African Americans. She’s a clinical psychologist and professor of psychological sciences at Kent State. She adds, “It becomes incumbent upon our white colleagues to be willing to have discussions within themselves to say, ‘What can we do? How do we help? Here's what we want to do.’ And do it. Because your [black] workers are exhausted. They're numb and they're in pain. And it's very difficult for them to shoulder the burden of telling you what to do.”
The footage showing the final moments of Floyd and Arbery, as well as the data about COVID-19 in the black community, can trigger stress responses in African Americans in a way they don't in concerned, empathetic whites, says Angela Neal-Barnett, a professor of psychology at Kent State University and director of the Program for Research on Anxiety Disorders among African Americans."I see two pandemics: the COVID-19 and racism," Barnett says. "And both of them are killing us."
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, many leaders are overwhelmed and at a loss as to how to support their Black employees. Yet it’s critical that HR and DEI leaders step up to address the mental health impact on Black Americans in their workforce. In this Harvard Business Review article, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett provides several suggestions for how to do that.

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett featured in Fortune Magazine

This article emphasizes the importance of understanding grief in the workplace. “We know that grief upon grief upon grief, in this time of isolation, brings about trauma and very, very high anxiety. And from a Black and brown perspective, the question that everyone is asking is, ‘What next?’”

Read it here!!

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett featured in Her Campus Magazine

This article is part of Her Campus's 'Anxiety on Campus: Feeling Seen & Speaking Out', a project dedicated to highlighting mental health and anxiety on campus.

Dr. Angela on the the Harvard Business Review Podcast: The Anxious Achiever

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett & S.O.S in O, The Oprah Magazine

September, 2019 Issue

News5 ABC Cleveland

Watch Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett on News5 ABC Cleveland discuss PRADAA and its Community partner Birthing Beautiful Communities (BBC) work to fight the Black infant mortality crisis in Ohio. Read full article here!

Watch Dr. Neal-Barnett discuss the implications of stress and racial stress for Black moms on News5 ABC Cleveland. Read the full news article here!

NBC News

Check out Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett on NBC News discussing how anxiety affects African-Americans here!

PBS

Watch our S.U.N team represent PRADAA lab on PBS here!

The Blend

WCPN Ideastream

Check out Dr. Neal-Barnett on WCPN Ideastream discussing infant mortality, race-related stress and our sister circle intervention, S.U.N.

WJKSU Public Radio for Northeast Ohio

Listen to Dr. Neal-Barnett’s radio interview with WKSU discussing racial disparities in infant mortality and her work with First Year Cleveland developing a program that trains doulas not only to help with the physical care of birthing mothers, but also their emotional states including levels of stress hormones.

Channel 3 News Cleveland

Watch PRADAA Graduate Martale Davis, MA and Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett on Channel 3 News Cleveland talk about our latest research on the Acting White Accusation, Social Anxiety and Racial Bullying Victimization.

KentWired

Emily France, a senior Research Assistant, talks to 'KentWired' about "The Link Between Racism and Pregnancy". View the full article here to learn more about her research project!

National Public Radio (NPR)

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett talks "Teen Anxiety On The Rise" on NPR’s On Point on October 19th, 2017. Listen and view the full article here!

Dr. Neal-Barnett and her PRADAA team were featured on the National Public Radio segment Exploradio: Avoiding the “acting White” trap on September, 15, 2014. On air, the PRADAA lab discussed the implications of the acting White accusation in relation to anxiety, bullying, and adolescent development, as well as their real world experiences with the accusation. Acting “White” has received attention in the media due to a recent public incident involving a South Carolina student who alleged she was assaulted for acting “White.” Listen to our NPR podcast and follow along to the transcription here!

Anxiety.org

Graduate student Martale Davis, MA and Dr. Neal-Barnett wrote an article for Anxiety.org on the Acting White Accusation. Take a look!

The Tom Joyner Morning Show

Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett discusses panic attacks among Black men and women on the Tom Joyner Morning Show on May 20th, 2015. Listen and view the full here!

Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race (Vol 26, No. 1)

The 2015 edition of the American Psychological Association Division 45’s Focus featured Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett who was interviewed by Alyson Burns-Glover about the acting White accusation. In this expert back and forth, Dr. Angela talked about how concerns about the acting White accusation arose in our research, the role of racial identity in the impact of the accusation and clinical implications of our research. This interview is both informative and interesting. Read about our work on page 10 here!

Beacon Journal

Dr. Neal-Barnett was featured in the Beacon Journal on April, 12th, 2015 in an article entitled “Kent State University develops an app to reduce stress in young black girls.” She discussed the innovative app, a part of the Sisters United Now (S.U.N.) program. The app uses the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) concept of cognitive restructuring by via the use of technology and music. As such, the app helps young black girls learn to identify and cope with stress in their lives. The girls choose their own theme song which helps trigger a change in attitude. Dr. Angela along with computer science professor Arden Ruttan and two of his students designed the app which has been tested for more than a year. Read the full here!

Record-Courier

The PRADAA team was featured on the front-page of the June 3rd edition of the Record-Courier. The focus of the story was on an investigation of the Acting White Accusation, which was led by Marsheena Murray, Ph.D., a 2011 Kent State doctoral graduate and supervised by our Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett.

Acting white is an accusation faced by many black adolescents, and although it is one of the most negative accusations a black adolescent can receive from another, it appears that being accused of acting white is very common for black adolescents.

The study was published in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders in 2012 and highlights the emotional implications of being on the receiving end of the acting white accusation. We surveyed more than 100 low-income African-American adolescents from predominantly black high schools in Northeast Ohio and found higher levels of anxiety among those who had been accused of acting white.

Interestingly, the accusation of acting white was experienced both directly and indirectly by half of the respondents. Only four participants reported not experiencing any aspect of the accusation either directly or indirectly. The research found that black adolescents who experienced both indirect and direct accusations of acting white evidenced higher levels of anxiety than those who heard it indirectly only. “At times, teens hear the accusation directly, such as ‘You act like a white girl,’” Neal-Barnett said. “Other times, they hear it in an indirect way, such as ‘Why you listening to white boy music?’” High anxiety also was associated with hearing the accusation on numerous occasions.

The study’s findings build on our team’s previous work on the topic and pave the way for intervention studies.

“We are committed to developing interventions for black adolescents,” Neal-Barnett said. “Not everybody copes ineffectively with the accusation of acting white, but we want to develop interventions to teach adolescents who receive the accusation how to cope more effectively so they don’t experience these higher levels of anxiety or stress. In addition, our team is beginning to look at teens that make the accusation.“

The results are published in the article “The Acting White Accusation, Racial Identity, and Anxiety Among African American Adolescents,” published in the May issue of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders. Read about our work online here!