Poster Abstracts - 2022

The Impact of COVID-19 On Physical Fitness and Positive Youth Development Within the THINK Program – Introduction: The pandemic dramatically changed societal and environmental considerations for many families. Adolescents adjusted to periods of social isolation, reductions in physical activity due to school and community wide policies, and various environmental stressors. The purpose of this investigation is to evaluate the extent […]

Natural Recovery from Substance Addiction: Implications for Clinical Practice – Addiction currently affects more than 14% of people ages 12 and older in the United States. The fact that substance addiction can be a persistent problem in people’s lives has led to the contestable claim that addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease that can only be overcome through specialized […]

Lower Leg Muscle Quality Assessed by Echo Intensity and Specific Force is Preserved in Physically Active Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease – The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of Parkinson’s disease (PD) on muscle quality, as measured by echo intensity (MQEI) and specific force (MQSF). We also analyzed correlations and explored MQEI and MQSF across Hoehn and […]

Is Change Constant? Black Students’ Experiences with the Perpetuation of the Status Quo During COVID-19 – The rapid shift to emergency remote education – hereafter referred to as “ERE” – to stem the spread of COVID-19 was an unprecedented albeit necessary measure for public health and safety. Students and their families and educators were challenged to engage in a novel […]

Characterization of Bone Mineral Density and Morphologic Variation in Skeletal Structures – Within athletic populations, skeletal structure variability is an often overlooked aspect that has clinically significant consequences. Competitive athletes excel in their sport in part due to exceptional anatomical characteristics. For example, the average Olympic gymnast is much shorter than the national average while Olympic swimmers tend to have […]

The Ethnocentric Bias in Flourishing Research – The most used flourishing measures all approach the question of what it means to live well from a universalist perspective that assumes that there is a single, overarching model of what flourishing looks like across cultures. Because the question of what components make up flourishing has major theoretical implications for how individuals and society […]

Sex, Drugs, and Socioemotional Competency: Results from a School-Based Adolescent Wellness Intervention Program Evaluation – This poster explores findings from a cross-sectional study exploring the Sexual Risk Avoidance Education program’s impact on 270 low-income, diverse, middle school and high school students in South Florida. Specifically, the study explores (a) program impact on sexual health behavior and substance abuse, (b) the […]

A Close Analysis of 8 Prominent Measures of Flourishing – Interest in the psychological study of flourishing has burgeoned over the past three decades. In this time, researchers have developed various paradigms for understanding the structure and measurement of human flourishing. We review eight prominent models of flourishing, thriving, or rich well-being through a close analysis of their primary instruments. […]

Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography in the Assessment of Lower Leg Muscle Stiffness in Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease – Parkinson’s disease (PD) leads to accelerated declines in mobility, with rigidity being a major contributing factor. The development of objective measures of rigidity would be invaluable in the diagnostics and application of interventions. The purposes of this study were to determine the […]

The Impact of Body Composition and Central Fat Distribution on Vascular Markers of Cardiac Risk in a Multiracial Sample of Premenopausal Women – Background and aims: Overweight/obesity, specifically central obesity i.e., visceral adipose tissue (VAT), have been shown to contribute to cardiovascular disease (CVD), atherosclerosis, and metabolic syndrome. Technological advances in health screenings have allowed for non-invasive measurements of arterial […]