Youth Aware Issue 13

F I N D I N G Y O U R
balance
T A K I N G T I M E F O R Y O U R S E L F
A M I D S T A B U S Y ( A N D O F T E N
S T R E S S F U L ) S C H O O L Y E A R .
Youth Aware

EDITOR'S NOTE
Dear Readers,
I hope you all had a wonderful start to the school year!
With Thanksgiving coming up, we at Youth Aware have
been taking the time to think about all the things we are
grateful for, and the biggest one that comes to mind is
you, our readers! We are so grateful to all of you for
supporting us thus far and engaging with us by voicing
your thoughts and opinions on issues that matter. This
issue is centered around a topic that often comes up
during the holiday season: personal and social wellbeing.
Now especially with the holiday season coming
up, it’s important to take time off for yourself amidst
busy (and often chaotic) personal and social
responsibilities. This issue we were also honored to
feature Dr. Rozenn Lemaitre who shares her inspiring
journey to her current position at the intersection of
biochemistry and public heatlh.
Happy Holidays from the Youth Aware team!
Mehr Grewal
CO-FOUNDER

table of contents
4 MY EXPERIENCE
HUMMERS, LITTLE
INTERACTING WITH
JEWELS OF AVIAN
SERVICE DOGS
AERIALISTS
5 8 IT'S RAINING FISH!
9 RETHINKING
JULIE'S BIRTHDAY
NUCLEAR ENERGY
16 INTEGRATING
17
BIOCHEMISTRY AND
PUBLIC HEALTH
26
THE CHRONIC
ANXIETY IN OUR
SOCIETY

19
My Experience Interacting with
Service Dogs
By Ivanka Varshney
I was at my violin recital when I first saw and interacted
with a personal therapy / service dog. I had in the past
met working dogs like the police K-9 and hospital
therapy dogs and interviewed their handlers. I had also
met few therapy miniature horses in Florida. It was my
first time meeting a service dog. It belonged to my violin
teacher Miss Jessica!
His name is Ronin. He is a Australian shepherd/sheltie
mix around 1-2 years old. He definitely was one of the
most well behaved and trained dogs I have come across.
Out of curiosity, I asked my teacher if I could interview
her for my article and she graciously agreed! During the
interview we found out that she got Ronin as a small
puppy. Ronin has been in training as a personal service
dog since for her. They also do fun agility training.
trained specifically to assist those individuals with mental
health conditions like anxiety disorders. They are working
animals and perform tasks on behalf of their owners.
Ronin is a very smart service dog that helps Miss Jessica with
her anxiety disorder. He can and does accompany her
everywhere. He even travels with her ! He is also a certified
good canine citizen. Ronin is allowed to go to all public places
with her. He is a great companion who helps her with her
mental health and keeps her anxiety under control. He is a
perfect example of a service dog and possesses so many
qualities of a good service dog. For example, he is focused and
attentive to his handler, is calm in all settings, is alert but not
reactive and is easily socialized in many different settings.
A service dog is a dog that has been individually trained
to do work or perform tasks for a person with disability.
Psychiatric service dogs are

HUMMERS,
Little Jewels of
AVIAN AERIALISTS
BY WILLIAM J. KEPPLER, PH.D.
This birder knows for certain that springtime has arrived
when our two species of hummingbirds are here and
active. One species is Anna’s (Calypte ana) a year round
resident in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to many
backyard feeders, and the Rufous Hummingbird,
(Selasphorus rufus), a smaller aerialist, who migrates from
Mexico.
Hummingbirds are native only to the Western Hemisphere
and were introduced first to Europeans by the explorer
Christopher Columbus on his Second Voyage to the New
World. They receive their name “Hummers” from the
sound given off from their wing beat of 30 to 80 times per
second. They are the smallest and only birds capable of
flying backward and upside down. The tiniest bird of all is

the Bee hummingbird (Mellisuga colubris) that resides in
Cuba and is the size of a honey bee. Peru and Ecuador
have the largest number of species, over 328 species
identified. There are 18 species of hummingbirds that are
residents of the United States, mostly in southern Arizona.
East of the Mississippi River, there is only one species, the
Ruby-throated hummingbird, (Archilochus colubris), a
common resident of urban neighborhoods.
The anatomy of hummingbirds is wonderfully adopted for
extracting the sweet nectar from tubular flowers,
especially red, as a source of energy for flight and social
life. Artificial hummingbird feeders imitate the shape and
color of garden flowers in spring and summer. When a
hummer sips the nectar, it collects the flower’s pollen on
its head. As a result, cross-pollination occurs as the bird
moves from flower to flower. Both the hummer and the
flower benefit and biologists call this mutualism, since
two widely different species help each other to survive in
nature. Hummingbirds may also feed on tiny insects in the
flower cup made by sapsucker woodpeckers.
Male hummingbirds have brightly colored throat patches
called gorgets of iridescent colors, especially ruby red,
amethyst, deep purple, and sapphire, blue. These brilliant
colors are produced by complex feather structures that
reflect certain wave lengths of light, but not others. Male
hummers use these jewel like gorgets in courtship
displayed with females.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, hummingbirds frequently
visit gardens and home feeders. Upon locating a patch

of bright red tubular flowers, Anna’s and Rufous hummingbirds
claim ownership of their garden territory and protect it from
other hummers. One biologist, Dr. Chandler S. Robbins says
that, “all hummingbirds are fearless and pugnacious.”
DNA genomics based upon heredity show that hummingbirds
are closely related to swifts, another family of agile aerialists. An
enzyme comparison was researched and sequenced between
these two families of fast flyers.
Further, ornithologists maintain that despite their extraordinary
popularity by the public, hummingbirds are some of the least
understood of all North American birds.
Finally, check out this summer the common Anna’s
hummingbird or smaller Rufous hummingbird dive bombing
some red tubular flowers seeking a sweet treat of sugary
nectar. Hummers are fantastic birds to watch and are the
champion aerialists!

it's raining fish!
by simar grewal
For almost 2 hundred years, the people of
Yoro, Honduras have witnessed fish falling
from the sky! When they step outside their
homes, a carpet of fish is awaiting them!
People say that it is a great miracle
because it’s not every day that you go
outside, and fish are falling
from the sky! But the real reason is
that waterspouts which scoop them up in
the Atlantic and carry them 125 miles to
Yoro.
Fish usually fall from the sky in May or June
and when this happens, they pick up the
fish and bring them back to their house
where they eat them happily!
They call this festival “Lluvia de Peces”.

Rethinking
Nuclear
Energy
With nuclear energy often
being cited as one of the
most cost effective and clean
forms of energy, why do
some people oppose it?
By Luiz Martins
Credit: Fllickr - France's Nuclear Energy by Gretchen Mahan

It is March 11th, 2011, and news starts spreading like
wildfire on news outlets about The Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear disaster. On the International Nuclear and
Radiological Event Scale (INES), it is a Level 7, a major
accident. To this day, the effects of radiation from
Fukushima is present and still affecting lives. Should we
risk another accident like this in the future? On December
20, 1951, it was the first time in history that a nuclear chain
produced electricity. Since then, nuclear fission was
developed and matured, increasing the chances of more
catastrophic incidents occurring. On top of the potential
dangers of nuclear energy, it is linked to advancements in
nuclear weaponry, pollutes the environment with
radioactive waste, and creates unsafe jobs; the risks
associated with nuclear energy are not worth the
benefits. Therefore, society should reconsider if the risks
associated with building nuclear power plants is truly
justifiable and worthwhile for the future of humanity.
Most importantly, the development of nuclear energy is
directly linked to the development of nuclear weapons. As
stated by nuclearinfo.net, a website that was developed
by a group of Physicists from the School of Physics at the
University of Melbourne in Australia, describes how
nuclear fuel can be synthesized to create weaponry: “This
is currently the most common fuel in nuclear reactors.
Natural Uranium must be enriched to contain about 3-5%
235U before it can be used in most conventional reactors.
The CANDU Heavy-Water reactor can use natural Uranium
to create a weapon. Uranium must be enriched above
80%. Highly enriched Uranium (more than 20%
enrichment) is also used for reactors in naval vessels

and for research reactors. Various techniques can be used
to enrich Uranium. Any of these techniques used to enrich
Uranium for power plants could, in theory, be further used
to produce 235U in pure enough quantities for nuclear
weapons” (“Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” 2019). Even
with The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT) that prevents the spread of nuclear
weaponry, promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy
internationally, many countries cheat on the NPT
agreement and pose a threat, such as Iraq. By globally
halting the construction of nuclear power plants, the
several countries that do not follow the NPT threat level
will go down. Furthermore, humanity faces significant
dangers from the advancements in nuclear weapons, as
reported by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit
organization that focuses on science and global
security issues due to the ever-increasing technological
advancements: “Humanity now faces two simultaneous
existential threats, either of which would be cause for
extreme concern and immediate attention. These major
threats—nuclear weapons and climate change—were
exacerbated this past year by the increased use of
information warfare to undermine democracy around the
world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and
putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger”
(John Mecklin, 2019). With the advancements on nuclear
power plants, the danger and chance that a nation will
abuse the technology to create nuclear bombs will
increase. Other power sources do not have to deal with
this hazardous area of technology; humanity needs to
reconsider more of the potential detrimental effects of
nuclear power in the future. Lastly, the link between

nuclear power and nuclear weaponry is often denied by
industries associated with it. By observing past events,
there have been governments who manipulated the trust
of the public to create nuclear weaponry using nuclear
energy. According to cnduk.org, an international
campaign fighting against a global nuclear weapons ban:
“It was under the misleading slogan of ‘Atoms for Peace,’
that the Queen ceremonially opened what was officially
described as Britain’s first nuclear power station, at
Calder Hall in Cumbria, in 1956. The newsreel commentary
described how it would produce cheap and clean nuclear
energy for everyone. This was untrue. Calder Hall was not
a civil power station. It was built primarily to produce
plutonium for nuclear weapons. The electricity it
produced was a byproduct to power the rest of the site”
(“The Links between Nuclear Power and Nuclear
Weapons”). There are many other instances that the
public was manipulated to believe that a nuclear power
station was built for energy purposes but instead was
constructed to produce fuel for atomic bombs. With so
much corruption in the world and decisiveness,
construction of these plants should be taken with caution
if insisted. The intentions of an unstable government
with nuclear power technology can pose significant
dangers to countries around the world, thus needing a
long string of treaties and negotiation to protect people
from international conflicts due to the use of nuclear
weaponry.
Moreover, the waste from nuclear power plants can be
deadly to humans and destructive to the environment.
Primarily, when a meltdown occurs, the effects of the

adiation can be mass spread and cause significant illness
or even death to people. An example of just how staggering
the results are can be seen by the Chernobyl accident,
according to vittana.org: “... it is estimated that up to 30,000
people were killed because of the side effects of radiation
in plants, animals, and foods. Another 2.5 million people are
believed to be suffering from health issues that can be
directly attributed to the nuclear power plant” (Ayres, 3).
Countless lives were lost due to only one reactor out of the
hundreds present today; there might be one nearby you!
Other sources of energy are nowhere as riskier than nuclear
power. In addition, the waste is environmentally damaging
and last for years if accumulated, or a disaster occurs:
“Spent nuclear fuel takes hundreds of years to decompose
before it reaches adequate levels of safety. For this reason
alone, it becomes an issue that other energy sources simply
don’t have to deal with,” according to
rewnablersourcescoalition.org (“Nuclear Energy: Pros and
Cons,” 4). Combining with the fact that each nuclear power
plant generates an average of 20 metric tons of used
nuclear fuel per year and that it takes hundreds of years to
be safe, the ecosystems suffers tremendously because of it.
Although it does not produce as much CO2 as other energy
sources, such as fossil fuels, it further unbalances nature by
adding yet another type of pollution. On the other hand,
companies and citizens in favor of nuclear power plants
claim that it creates new job opportunities, boosting the
economy of an area.

Although these plants can temporarily lower
unemployment, the mining, along with the transportation
of uranium, can be very hazardous to the health of the
workers: “The instability of uranium can have a dramatic
impact on the health of those who mine it and transport it
for refinement or use” (Ayres,5). Safety should be the top
priority of every citizen, but the handling of uranium goes
directly in conflict with it. Building wind turbines, water
dams, and solar panels can serve as a job way less
dangerous than working with nuclear energy while also
producing radioactive-free energy. Hence, nuclear power
plants should be halted as humans can develop these
other energy-producing methods to raise the demand for
them, increasing safer alternative jobs than nuclear
energy.
To conclude, nuclear energy advances nuclear weaponry,
destroys the environment with its radioactive waste, and
promotes unsafe working conditions; the potential
environmental and human effects of a nuclear disaster
are simply not worth the risk to take as The United States
have cleaner and safer alternatives for energy in our
disposal. Contact a local legislator and share concerns
about the risk of having nuclear power plants. Inform
others about nuclear energy and have them stand up to
protect areas from participating in the construction of
nuclear power plants. If this mentality was present before
nuclear fission was developed into creating energy, it
might have prevented the catastrophes that still are
engraved in the minds of people around the world.

Bibliography
Ayres, Crystal. “26 Important Nuclear Energy Pros and
Cons.” Vittana.org, Vittana,
vittana.org/26-important-nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons.
Mecklin, John. “2019 Doomsday Clock Statement.” Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists,
thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/
“Nuclear Energy Pros & Cons.” Renewable Resources
Coalition, Renewable Resources
Coalition, 19 Nov. 2016,
www.renewableresourcescoalition.org/nuclear-energypros-cons/
Sevior, Martin. “Nuclearinfo.net.” Nuclear Proliferation,
2019,
nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/OneCompletePage.
“The Links between Nuclear Power and Nuclear
Weapons.” Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament, cnduk.org/resources/links-nuclear-powernuclear-weapons/

Julie's
Birthday
B Y S I M R A N A D N A N I
It was Julie's birthday. She had
invited Sam, Susan, Mary, and Joe to
her birthday party. Julie's mom
hidden the cake the kids had to find
it. Julie's mom gave them a talking
dog. She was helping the kids with
the first clue. The dog was named
Tenny. Tenny gave them a letter
which had a note and an apple
inside. The note told them to break
the apple. A bird burst out of the
apple! The bird gave them a golden
key. The words "throw me" were
engraved on the key. Julie threw the
key. The key opened a door! The
kids climbed inside the door. Inside
the door, there was a rock, a note,
and five knives. The note told them
to scratch the rock with the knives.
Each kid grabbed a knife and
started to scratch the rock. After
they scratched the rock, they found
the cake. They were so excited
because they could finally enjoy the
cake.

INTEGRATING
BIOCHEMISTRY AND
PUBLIC HEALTH
Conversation with
Dr. Rozenn
Lemaitre
Dr. Rozenn Lemaitre is interested in new modifiable
lipidomic biomarkers that may influence diabetes
incidence, cardiovascular disease and healthy aging. She
also is studying lipid biomarkers of metabolism, such as
sphingolipids and Endoscopic Eradication Therapies (EET).
Dr. Lemaitre, please walk us through your journey, and how
you landed up at UW Medicine.
I started my career in France and got a Biochemical
Engineering degree from an engineering school. I came to
the US and earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Montana State
University. I worked at UC Irvine as a postdoc in biochemistry,
as well as at the University of Washington and the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute.

I decided to switch from biochemistry to epidemiology. I got
a Master's in Public Health at the University of Washington
and started working as a research scientist first, and I am
now faculty in the Department of Medicine. So that's about
my journey.
Please talk about your interest in biochemistry and also your
overlapping research with medicine and public health.
My main research is looking at lipids and their influence on
human health. The connection with biochemistry is that I am
interested in lipids, such as fatty acids and fatty acid
derivatives. My biochemistry background is helping me
understand biology, which is behind some of the findings we
find in human studies. The kinds of studies I am involved with
are extensive population studies. I work on prospective
cohorts. A prospective cohort is where you enroll a large
number of people and make a lot of measurements on them.
You then follow them over time. We have cohorts such as the
Cardiovascular Health Study, a cohort of older adults. When
they are 65 years old, we follow them in time for all the
events that might happen. A study that I'm involved with is for
American Indians. It's called Strong Heart and involves 12
different tribes throughout the country.

They, too, are followed in time, but it's slightly different. It
involves very large studies and very large families. It's slightly
different structures and independent people, but that's the
same idea. And so for some of the lipids that I'm interested
in, I started with an interest in fatty acids. You may have
heard about omega-three fatty acids, for example. There
has been a lot of research done on those. Several years ago,
I got really interested in saturated fatty acids, particularly
very long ones. So when we think about saturated fatty acids,
what you hear from current dietary recommendations is to
limit intake. But saturated fatty acid comes in different
flavors. We have some very long ones in the body in some
membranes and circulating in the blood. Those have a very
different relationship to disease. So where you might find
that, for example, palmitic acid, the most prominent
saturated fatty acid in the diet, and the body, is associated
with a higher risk of diabetes. For example, when you look at
very long chains of saturated fatty acids, which have at least
20 carbons, palmitic only has 16. When you have 22, 23, or 24
carbons, higher absorption levels are associated with a
lower risk of diabetes, so very different. I have been
interested in pursuing those fatty acids and looking at what
lipids they are on. Because fatty acids are not floating
around, they're usually attached to the large complex lipid
backbone. I'm now looking at the total lipid. The backbone
crisscrosses with a fatty acid and we look at its association
with different health outcomes.

Can you please talk about your interests in biochemistry and
how that overlaps research with medicine?
I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but my work is in epidemiology.
Epidemiology is much closer to medicine. It looks at factors
that might be used for the prevention of disease. For example,
we will measure several blood factors and see a relationship
to disease development. There's a direct relationship to
medicine, but instead of reacting to the disease, we try to
prevent it.
Can you please tell us about more about your research
projects, especially those that are like cardiology focused?
Alright, so I have a couple of grants where we are measuring
lipids called sphingolipids. Sphingolipids are a very large
family of lipids, and they include things like ceramides and
sphingomyelin. They have attached one fatty acid, which
varies in length and saturation. Some of what I am looking at is
the relationship between the different species of ceramides
and sphingomyelin and the relationship to the risk of
cardiovascular disease. Including atrial fibrillation, heart
failure, sudden cardiac arrest, diabetes, and diabetes
complications; we look into subclinical disease. If you look at
an MRI, you can see some measurements of the heart that can
predict heart failure, and, for example, atrial fibrillation.

For example, we have seen sphingomyelin that carries
palmitic acid, the short, saturated fatty acids I mentioned
earlier. They have higher levels of these sphingomyelins and
are associated with an increased risk of heart failure and
atrial fibrillation. This is something we've already published.
They also have a higher risk of total mortality and also a
higher risk of kidney disease. And in contrast, we have seen
that the sphingomyelinase that has an attached very long
chain of saturated fatty acid is reversely associated with a
lower risk of atrial fibrillation, heart failure, mortality, and
kidney disease.
Could you please tell us about the current projects you are
involved with and how those are multidisciplinary?
It is multidisciplinary in that we work on different outcomes,
for example, kidney disease, heart disease, and infection.
We look at multiple exposures. So I mentioned sphingolipids,
but we're also looking at epoxide derivatives of fatty acids,
we are looking at markers of the microbiome such as TMAO,
and we are looking at genetics. So some of the work we do
involves multiple studies, for example, consortium and when
we look at genetic factors associated with, say, levels of
fatty acids. This is not something any study can do on its own;
it needs the power of multiple studies. We have formed
consortiums that can look at this.

In combination with some of the work on sphingolipids, we
have a collaborator in medicinal chemistry who looks at
ventricular myocytes in culture. She looks at the effect of
changing the ceramide concentration and the consequence
on the cells and their response to oxidative stress. So that is
one aim of one of our clients.
Could you talk about sphingolipids and how they impact
heart disease? How is this relevant in cardiology?
There exists already some inhibitors of the pathways that
make ceramides and sphingomyelin. We implicate that we
shouldn't use those inhibitors that shut a pathway entirely
because you remove good routes in the process. The work
implies that we need new inhibitors of ceramide and
sphingomyelin that carry palmitic acid but do not touch the
other ceramide and sphingomyelinase that carries a longer
chain of saturated fatty acids. So that's the implication of the
work. We may be able to use those new inhibitors to prevent
those heart disease symptoms or syndrome sessions.
How would you factor like genetics like family history and
things like smoking in your work?
When we analyze biomarkers and heart disease, we adjust
the analysis for other factors that might influence it. So heart
disease is in question.

For example, smoking is a significant factor, and body
weight is another one. Family history is usually not as strong
as some of the other factors. Still, hypertension, the level of
cholesterol or LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol are
crucial predictors of separate heart disease events. And so
we adjust our analysis for that.
How can like young people be involved with this kind of
research? What opportunities are there for people
interested in this research?
It would help if you found an investigator who you can work
with. For example, I had a high school student who
approached me, and I wanted to look at sphingolipids and
lung function, which was something we were not doing. His
father is at UW and is knowledgeable about lung function. As
a physician, he could oversee the project. This was an
excellent addition to what we were already doing with heart
disease. It involved analyzing the sphingolipid and the zones
rank function, the measures we have in most prospective
studies. He then wrote the paper. We reviewed it, and he has
submitted it to a journal, so it is possible to find a researcher
to work with.

What would your message be to young people around the
world who are interested in research, especially medicine
related research?
You have to follow what interests you. You really do. Let me
give you an example. When I started at the University of
Washington, I met a researcher named David Siscovick, who
was working on sudden cardiac arrest. His father died in
front of him from cardiac arrest when he was nine years old,
which inspired him to be involved in research on cardiac
arrest. He started a repository in Seattle, where we now have
blood from over 3000, perhaps 4000 cardiac arrest patients
that the paramedics have attended. When I met him, he told
me he was really interested in studying fatty acids. This is how
I started working in medicine, in the Department of Medicine,
so it has to be something that interests you, and you can
follow through.

Image Credit: https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/social-media-mental-health-impact-anxiety-depression-fomo-comparison-culture-instagram/353035
The
Chronic
Anxiety in
Our
Society
Challenging the
negative
stereotypes of
chronic anxiety
By Luiz
Martins
Anxiety is one of the most common
and complex feelings that people
around the world suffer from.
Different studies in Psychology
show how complicated and broad
are the causes, signs, symptoms,
and treatments of anxiety. Chronic
anxiety is the most known type, and
people have been talking even more
about it now as the world faces
devastating losses and feelings of
uncertainty about the future and
drastic changes in social

interactions during these
pandemic times. But there is
another type of anxiety that has
similar level of incidence, signs,
and effects on peoples' lives,
but it is not as known. Valerie
Purdie-Greenaway, social
psychologist and Columbia
University professor, presents
on the TED Talk her research
"The anxiety that comes from
being treated as an outsider,"
correlating anxiety with the
feeling of being a stranger in
several contexts: "And this is the
anxiety that comes from being
part of a social group, whether
it's your race, your ethnicity,
your gender, your sexual
orientation, your size, and
walking around the world and
sort of bumping up to
environments where you're
stereotyped, where you're
"otherwise-d," and that context
makes you feel different." (2021).
The context consists of
conscious and unconscious
ideas that encompasses
psychological, social, cultural,
linguistic, and multigenerational
aspects. Her
valuable research combines
the studies of Psychology and
Sociology, showing the social
context intentionally or
unintentionally impacts on
people’s feelings of insecurity.
The context-based anxiety is
broad and common in any
group formation with a person
with stereotyped
characteristics such as gender,
background, color, race, and
religion. As a psychologist,
Valerie Purdie-Greenaway
provides thoughtful advice for
those who suffer from this
type of anxiety: First, realize
and be aware that there is
nothing wrong with yourself;

it is all caused by the group
environment. Second, question
yourself if that environment is
worth your presence. Visualize
and differentiate yourself from
the situation or group while
reminding yourself that "I am
bigger than this moment."
Following the self-awareness
check, it is essential to create a
system of support that may
include a mentor, a close friend,
or a therapist that will
understand and remind how
tricky the context-based
anxiety dynamic is and how to
cope with the thoughts and
symptoms triggered by the
feeling. She signalizes very
often the context-based anxiety
is undetectable but not the
harmful health consequences.
One of the most harmful
aspects of this kind of anxiety is
potentially limiting the person's
social, emotional, and
professional development. The
individual must avoid the trap
of assuming that they are the
cause of the feeling of being
unfit. The person feels more
vulnerable to life's inevitable
adversities and often does not
find enough psychological
instruments to maintain
health and overcome
challenging environmental
situations.
When female workers, African
Americans, Islamics, and
several other identities realize
that society treats them
differently, they usually feel
anger and deep frustration,
leading to different levels of
stress, anxiety, and depression.
Valerie Purdie-Greenaway
reminds in the interview that,
"The problem is, stress is
debilitating. So even though
those moments of anger may
even make you feel like you
can do something, you feel
empowered as a group, it still
can erode our health. And so,
when I think about inclusive
societies, I think about it from

a justice perspective. I also
think about it from a health
perspective, because it's all
linked together." (2021).
Valerie Purdie-Greenaway
demonstrates her consistent
work on lifelong learning and
critical self-reflection and
reinforced that every person
must find additional answers
and strategies to cope with
anxiety inside themselves and
with mentors to build a resilient
system.
The researcher recognizes and
challenges power imbalances
from choosing this theme for
her thesis to pointing how
unfair institutionalized groups
jeopardize people through
stereotyping. "So I study the
kind of stress, anxiety,
frustration that stems from
being a member of a group that
can be stereotyped, and I study
the kinds of contexts that make
that happen, whether it's at
work, at school, in your
synagogue, you know, all of
the types of contexts that can
either intentionally or
inadvertently make us feel
otherwise, which causes that
anxiety." (2021).
The author Valerie Purdie-
Greenaway primes
institutional accountability in
several ways, such as
educating people about
context-based anxiety and
signalizing that the problem is
in the cultural environment.
She believes the groups may
become more inclusive and
empathic human
environments: "If you're a
member of a social group that
contends with these kinds of
challenges in society, that
layer of support that you can
go after in terms of creating
robust social networks, that is
a key." (2021). She reminds the
managers about their
institutional accountability in
this "(...) this is something that
is not going to be tolerated,

ecause it impacts your ability
to thrive, and it impacts other
people who are members of
their group. So this becomes a
manager issue. This becomes a
leadership issue." (2021).
Prejudice, stereotype, anger,
frustration, low self-esteem, and
self-doubt are severe socialpsychological
threats that
cause stress, chronic and
context-based anxiety, and
depression. It is not possible to
separate mind and body as well
as public health from social
justice.
According to the American
psychologist Abraham Maslow,
human beings share a universal
hierarchy of needs which shows
that the highest level of
personal achievement is only
conquered through solid social
accomplishments on the
security, social, and esteem
levels. Valerie Purdie-Greenway
reflects how more difficult it
can be for
a person differentiated by the
environment according to
race, gender, religion to reach
higher levels of personal
satisfaction after developing
context-based anxiety. The
person must overcome inner
barriers such as anger, selfdoubt,
fear, and anxiety
created by the environment.
Some people do not realize
these external emotional and
perceptual traps and believe
that they are not good enough
or not capable of achieving
higher goals. As Maslow noted,
the social and esteem levels
come right after the most
basic needs - physiological
and security. Although
contemporary psychoanalysts
better emphasize the holist
concept of human beings,
Maslow's pyramid graphically
shows the brief profound
feeling of inner fulfillment is
preceded by self-worth,
confidence, and
accomplishment steps. Valerie
Purdie-Greenaway signalizes

signalizes that it is possible and
healthy to leverage the power
of anxiety positively: "There's a
relationship between anxiety
and performance. There's lots of
research on this. It's sort of an
old idea. And the idea is that
some anxiety is good. My
doctoral advisor,
Claude Steele, after giving
thousands of talks and writing
books, I would ask him, "Do
you still get anxious on the
first day of class?" And he said
to me, "Valerie, when you stop
being nervous the first day of
class, it's time to retire." (2021)
"[Slow breathing] is like an anchor in the midst of an emotional
storm: The anchor won't make the storm goes away, but it will hold
you steady until it passes."
— Russ Harris
Image Credit: https://www.ibg.at/covid-19-wie-kann-ich-mit-sozialer-isolation-umgehen/

Bibliography
Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. (2020). Psychology 2E.
OpenStax College, Rice University.
Purdie-Greenaway, V. (n.d.). The anxiety that comes from being
treated like an outsider. TED. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from
https://www.ted.com/talks/valerie_purdie_greenaway_the_anxiety
_that_comes_from_being_treated_like_an_outsider.

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