https://drmarymbaba.com/book-a-class daily 0.75 2022-05-16 https://drmarymbaba.com/resources daily 0.75 2024-03-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/46317cc0-4feb-4340-8b85-9f587fca963d/IMG_1140.JPG Resources - Vinyl & Vinyasa Yoga Tobias Keene, D.D.S. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Tobias Keene brings a bit of unabashed Southern hospitality to all his patients. He moved to Washington, D.C. over thirty years ago as a freshman at Ivy College. Right after graduation, he attended World University’s School of Dentistry. Before opening Keene Dental in 1994, he worked for free clinics and some of the finest practices in the District. He is part of the 123 Dental Association and stays up-to-date on the latest dental discoveries. When not striving to keep his patients happy and healthy, he’s enjoys hiking with his family in Rock Creek Park. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/612d9a02-861c-4e9f-9d6e-43df5aca002a/dcms-logo.png Resources - The D.C. Music Summit The DC Music Summit is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that supports local musicians and the DC music industry by fostering inclusion, community engagement, professional development , and networking. It’s annual full day event is an exchange hub of education, inspiration, solutions in support of the health and growth of the DC Music industry https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/e684567f-39a0-4c47-af06-7b16db1d27bb/5045f3_fa74922aa2e64f16b1d9b1ac7888b8a1_mv2.png Resources - Soultry Sisters Tobias Keene, D.D.S. Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Tobias Keene brings a bit of unabashed Southern hospitality to all his patients. He moved to Washington, D.C. over thirty years ago as a freshman at Ivy College. Right after graduation, he attended World University’s School of Dentistry. Before opening Keene Dental in 1994, he worked for free clinics and some of the finest practices in the District. He is part of the 123 Dental Association and stays up-to-date on the latest dental discoveries. When not striving to keep his patients happy and healthy, he’s enjoys hiking with his family in Rock Creek Park. https://drmarymbaba.com/trainings daily 0.75 2024-03-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162100532-3KQ2I4Y7L7FRCZCNMT70/unsplash-image-eZIE5ZFR7Cs.jpg Trainings - Do.Re.Mind Program (coming soon) A workshop focused on the integration of music, mindfulness, & yoga. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162139913-VDKJL31XL4D6E1H7YX4B/unsplash-image-sJSu5qKXUKk.jpg Trainings - Social & Psychological Determinants of Health (coming soon) Discover the unique intersections of factors that attribute to mental health outcomes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655170556437-O447BJ3JY6TAITLHQZJS/unsplash-image-L8tWZT4CcVQ.jpg Trainings - Integrative Medicine, Mindfulness & Telehealth: Best Practices (coming soon) Delivering best practices for delivering mindfulness services in a clinical telehealth setting. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162185919-AO376O8NN5XS23JIPFPC/unsplash-image-IbsgfRJslEc.jpg Trainings - Evidence Informed Yoga & Mindfulness Practices (coming soon) Discover the unique intersections of factors that attribute to mental health outcomes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162161586-0W9O6HMWTXM0O1GV9OFJ/unsplash-image-DFtjXYd5Pto.jpg Trainings - Practical Mindfulness (coming soon) How does mindfulness play into our everyday lives? Learn more here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/b8f03e4e-6a12-422a-8791-a40a87a8ff75/unsplash-image-5Jyf8Qk00D4.jpg Trainings - Intersectionality 101 (coming soon) Discover the unique intersections of factors that attribute to general health outcomes. https://drmarymbaba.com/about daily 0.75 2026-02-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/105ad7bc-ad9a-4b9a-a9d9-efcf55b43f38/Mind+Life+Funding+Announcement+3.JPG https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/deccd7d4-8e83-4e4d-8cd2-7393c51fe9be/DSCF6256+%281%29.JPG About Mary Mbaba, MPH, MA, Ph.D., 200-hour YTT CEO/Founder/Artist/Scientist Dr. Mary Mbaba received her doctorate in Applied Social Psychology at the George Washington University in 2024 and is trained in understanding biases, stereotypes, attitudes, discrimination, social norms, and other social cognitions related to health-focused behaviors. Her professional specialization is on mental health and substance use, criminal justice involvement, sexual health and HIV prevention research. With over a decade of mixed methods research experience (since 2010), Mary’s work has ranged from interviewing and conducting research with opioid-dependent justice-involved individuals for a clinical Buprenorphine randomized control trial (RCT), to projects incorporating community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches focused on HIV prevention and understanding predecessors of mental health issues in Black adult men. Mary is a social scientist and behavioral health researcher. She recently defended her doctoral dissertation where she quantitatively explored racial identity, target image similarity and their impact on Black women’s willingness to practice yoga. Mary holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH) in 2012 from Emory Rollins School of Public Health with a focus on behavioral science and health education (BSHE) and a certificate in Socio-Contextual Determinants of Health. Her qualitative masters thesis documented social behavioral predictors of jail suicides. In 2009, Mary finished her Bachelor's degree in Psychology/Pre-Medicine at the University of Georgia. In 2015, she earned a certificate in Culture and Values in Social Policy from George Mason University. Mary is a teacher and a mentor. Mary has been practicing yoga since 2009 and instructing yoga since 2014. In 2016, she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training in D.C. and started the well known yoga class/movement Vinyl & Vinyasa. Currently, she teaches Research Methods in Psychology (PSYC 300) as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC). She has experience as an adjunct instructor in the psychiatry department of Howard University Hospital, where she taught medical students on the significance of social health determinants. Mary has also previously worked as a Contemplative/Holistic Integrative Practitioner in a virtual psychotherapy clinic, where she delivered yoga and meditation Telehealth services to young adults. Mary is a multi-hyphenated artist. She has created, directed, and produced clinical audiovisual continuing education credits for nurses and doctors (CME/CNU) focused on the health of Black gay/bisexual/same-gender loving men. Mary is a recording artist, @Mary2TheGame, and a cultural documentarian/photographer. She enjoys stretching, visiting museums, meditating, reading, traveling, thinking, and making music. Services Offered: creative consulting, research & design, 1:1 mindfulness coaching, yoga Therapeutic Style: gentle, understanding, compassionate, honest, and comprehensive. Social Identifiers: “I am a Black heterosexual cisgender woman of Nigerian immigrant parents who grew up in Atlanta (Stone Mountain), GA, spending my late 20’s/early 30’s in Washington, DC. I believe in the power of expressive identities and I consider people's background and experiences from a unique intersectionality framework.” https://drmarymbaba.com/home daily 1.0 2024-03-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655168520492-Y2NL23MBFVSLN06L0VTG/unsplash-image-vs-PjCh5goo.jpg Home - Defining Mindfulness Learn what mindfulness is and how to implement it in your everyday. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655168454176-8XX5EKJI0L5LAOHS0DNN/unsplash-image-9l_uA5gz4X8.jpg Home - Yoga Aerobics A yoga class for artists, instructors, and therapists. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/8a251928-6fe6-41c7-98c6-bc964e645121/gtown.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/ee742492-04b4-4915-ab9b-94bf3ffde0ba/gw_ahz_4cp_pos.png Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/b0d14cec-ae64-4894-8ce9-dc998d314091/wellplace+logo1+copy.jpeg Home https://drmarymbaba.com/research daily 0.75 2024-03-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1710546332306-4TT7GJGD1VKWR5LELAOJ/image-asset.jpeg Research - Racism Drives the Maternal Health Crisis in Washington, DC Addressing the maternal health crisis and reducing racial inequities in the nation’s capitol will require a multifaceted community-centered approach to narrow critical gaps in the access and availability of quality maternal health care services in Wards 7 & 8. By resourcing Black-led CBOs, expanding delivery of critical social need services, providing holistic services to birthing people, and diversifying the maternal health workforce, Black birthing people in DC will have greater opportunities for healthy infant delivery. The success of these approaches relies on policies that address structural racism and its impact on the health of Black people in DC. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1b127299-45fd-4cdc-a05e-adb1896f54d7/unsplash-image-QQU6rVuj-rM.jpg Research - The Influence of Descriptive and Injunctive Norms on U.S. Adolescent Marijuana Use: A Systematic Review of the Literature Findings: Injunctive norms and descriptive norms are key factors in considering adolescent marijuana use, although peer descriptive norms may be most influential. The lack of systematic definition and measurement of marijuana use, norms, and referents was apparent in the literature. Future research should systemize norm constructs and explore differences in the norm–marijuana use relationship among adolescents with intersecting identities (e.g., gender, race) and social network referents (e.g., family, peer groups). *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162798245-2012PX71VD96EJ73JR4T/unsplash-image-086tfQTWNDw.jpg Research - Ending the HIV epidemic for all, not just some: structural racism as a fundamental but overlooked social-structural determinant of the US HIV epidemic Findings: Collectively, the articles in this review highlight a growing consensus that the US has no real chance of EHE for all, absent a meaningful and measurable commitment to addressing structural racism and intersectional discrimination as core determinants of HIV, and without more equitable engagement with community-based organizations and communities disproportionately affected by HIV. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/fbe7e167-ac5e-4ac0-a3d4-bb6f2a895e8e/unsplash-image-mt3gtjvRp1U.jpg Research - Beyond “heartfelt condolences”: A critical take on mainstream psychology’s responses to anti-Black police brutality. Findings: Informed by critical psychology, and the critical theoretical frameworks of critical race theory, intersectionality, and Afro-Pessimism, the goal of this article is to critically engage with the topic of anti-Black police brutality. By critically engage, we mean expose and challenge the economic, social, and material power relations that disproportionately expose Black people to police brutality; and conceptualize police brutality not as a series of aberrant incidents, but as a structure that in essence constructs and reifies Blackness and Whiteness. We also introduce the Anti-Black Police Brutality Continuum, a conceptual framework of police brutality as a broad spectrum of routine manifestations of anti-Black structural racism, and criticize mainstream psychology’s deferral of a critical and transformative response to anti-Black police brutality. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655162905990-90HO3M3OIPLQG7O1U8YI/unsplash-image-fUjbTb4liT0.jpg Research - Strengths despite stress: Social-structural stressors and psychosocial buffers of depressive symptoms among U.S. Black men. Findings: Results showed that more everyday racial discrimination and incarceration, but not unemployment, significantly predicted more depressive symptoms. The links between discrimination, incarceration, and depressive symptoms were stronger for men who reported lower levels of problem solving coping and social support than those with higher levels. Our study suggests that interventions emphasizing protective factors may help Black men cope with some of the deleterious effects of racial discrimination and incarceration. It also underscores a need for structural interventions that reduce racial discrimination and incarceration. Depression among Black men is not simply a biomedical or psychological condition, but also a critical health equity issue *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/0d87246d-a498-4b52-b638-5f707e61cfef/unsplash-image-ezusQONJTmE.jpg Research - The Stroman Effect: Participants in MEN Count, an HIV/STI Reduction Intervention for Unemployed and Unstably Housed Black Heterosexual Men, Define Its Most Successful Elements Findings: Analyses highlighted three key themes: (a) the favorable impact of Mr. Stroman, the lead peer counselor, on participants’ willingness to participate in MEN Count and disclose their challenges—we dubbed this the “Stroman Effect”; (b) the importance of Black men intervention deliverers with relatable life experiences; and (c) how contextual factors such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic, needs for housing and employment services and safe spaces to talk about challenges, and absentee fathers shaped participation. We discuss the study’s implications for sustainable programs after funding ends and future multilevel health interventions to promote health equity for poor urban Black men. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655163026065-ROQG7F3DCYCN6T8XHTGJ/unsplash-image-eBxLS2Ax-08.jpg Research - Negative Police Encounters and Police Avoidance as Pathways to Depressive Symptoms Among US Black Men, 2015–2016 Findings: Results. The results showed significant indirect effects of incarceration history on depressive symptoms via negative police encounters and police avoidance. Unemployment moderated the indirect effect via police avoidance. Participants with a history of incarceration who were unemployed reported significantly higher police avoidance and, in turn, higher depressive symptoms. Moderation of unemployment on the indirect effect via negative police encounters was not significant. Conclusions. There is a critical need to broaden research on the health impact of mass incarceration to include other aspects of criminal justice involvement (e.g., negative police encounters and police avoidance) that negatively affect Black men’s mental health. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655163076994-JN2G9HZW10MSKMM924HV/unsplash-image-ZeitGGtlwzI.jpg Research - Prevalence, Diagnosis, and Treatment Rates of Mood Disorders among Opioid Users under Criminal Justice Supervision Findings: Results: Overall, 78 (30%) participants screened positive for moderate to severe depression and 54 (21%) screened positive for bipolar disorder. Participants self-reported mood disorders at higher rates than they screened positive for these conditions. Participants screening positive for these conditions experienced significantly greater family, legal, and medical problems on the Addiction Severity Index-Lite (ASI-Lite) than those who did not screen positive. Incidence of a lifetime suicide attempt was found to be associated with a positive screen for both mood disorders. Prescribed psychotropic treatment utilization was similar among those who screened positive for depression or bipolar disorder with approximately 38% reporting taking medication. Importance: Findings suggest universal mood disorder screening to improve comprehensive psychiatric care and treatment of opioid-dependent justice-involved individuals. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/2e9b7c2a-d6e6-4149-bb6e-446697d1222e/unsplash-image-978RAXoXnH4.jpg Research - Housing Experiences among Opioid-Dependent, Criminal Justice-Involved Individuals in Washington, D.C. Findings: Findings suggest that those with a greater number of housing transitions were considerably less likely to self-report criminal activity, and criminal involvement was highest among those who were chronically homeless. Residential mobility was unassociated with days of drug and alcohol use; however, residing in regulated housing (halfway houses and homeless shelters) was associated with a decreased frequency of substance use. The finding that residing at sober-living housing facilities with regulations governing behavior (regulated housing) was associated with a lower likelihood of illicit substance use may suggest that regulated housing settings may influence behavior. Further research in this area should explore how social networks and other related variables moderate the effects of housing type and mobility on crime and substance use. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/dde176bf-1740-44b3-8d68-811d8076801b/unsplash-image-3R_GnBNRVI0.jpg Research - Routine HIV Screening During Intake Medical Evaluation at a County - Jail Fulton County, Georgia, 2011-2012 Findings: Fulton County Jail (FCJ) in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of the 50 largest jails in the nation, with an average daily census of 2,269 detainees (1). During January 1, 2011–March 15, 2012, FCJ implemented a demonstration project to integrate routine rapid human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening into the medical intake process. This report summarizes the results. Nearly 59% of persons booked (22,920 of 39,073) received an intake medical evaluation, and voluntary oral fluid HIV rapid screening was offered, except to those who disclosed a previous HIV diagnosis (473 [2.1%]) or were not able to provide consent. An HIV test was offered on 18,869 visits, and 12,141 HIV tests were conducted. All persons with a reactive result (120 [1.0%]) underwent confirmatory HIV testing unless they subsequently disclosed a previous HIV diagnosis. This project identified 52 persons with newly diagnosed HIV infection; 48 by rapid testing (0.4% of those tested) during the study period. All received medical care in the facility and referral for community services on release. Without this HIV screening project, these persons likely would have been diagnosed later in the course of their infection, resulting in delayed access to care and treatment, and possible transmission of HIV to their partners. Linkage to community services is critical, and coordination with the public health system and community-based organizations are essential to ensure access to HIV care and retention in treatment for persons with HIV released from jail. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1710546614093-1PB75YW5TJMZC6GGSNPH/image-asset.jpeg Research - Trapped Inside: A Qualitative Study Assessing the Psychosocial Factors of Suicide in Jails (Master’s Thesis) Results of this study present psychosocial risk factors that predict suicide in a jail setting. Future recommendations call for a structured multidisciplinary approach to holistically address the problem of inmate suicide in the correctional setting. Additionally, a recommended need for increased resources dedicated to successful community integration is suggested. Future public health research calls for appropriate interventions that address the increased uptake of the mentally ill/disordered in U.S. jail systems with use of socially- and culturally-informed techniques to accurately identify inmates at high risk for suicide. *send email for copy of the PDF article https://drmarymbaba.com/services daily 0.75 2024-03-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1618497259178-6XJGK9GR6YAVBQL5L519/20140301_Trade-151_012-2.jpg Services https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1607694583486-2PQT0LQ193RL7MCB6DX4/20140228_Trade+151_0046.jpg Services https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62828c52eec6154ed2a5803c/1655227527660-3WYSS0DP1PKNO1R9PCK2/unsplash-image-cssvEZacHvQ.jpg Services - Common health outcomes addressed: Navigating Stress & Trauma Depression Anxiety Substance Use Sexual Health COVID-19 pandemic-related stress Life Transitions Justice Involvement Racial Fatigue Personal skill development: Emotional Resilience Self-Acceptance Self-Awareness Stress Management and Coping Greater Life Meaning Spiritual Awareness