Bonnie N Kaiser
Biographic Data
| ID | 74946 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bonnie N Kaiser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bonnie N |
| FAMILY NAME | Kaiser |
| SIGNATURE | KAISER B N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0742-1302 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 405 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 43 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Improving Implementation of Fertility Preservation Benefit Mandates
In this study, multiple barriers and facilitators were systematically identified to assist in improving implementation of FP benefit mandates. These findings support policies and intervention development for FP patients and clinics, and future legislative and regulatory efforts aimed at increasing timely access to FP insurance benefits
Locus of Control and Mental Health
In a context where extreme structural violence means that individuals realistically have little control over their lives, an external LoC better reflects lived experience, helping explain the association with better mental health outcomes
The Somali Distress and Resilience Scale
Although resilience has been identified as an important mediator of negative mental health outcomes among refugee populations, there are few culturally specific measures of resilience among such communities and no such measure among Somalis. In this study we aimed to develop a culturally appropriate measure of resilience specific to Somali adults in San Diego, as an example of a vulnerable refugee community. A community-based, exploratory sequent…
Using ethnographic approaches to document, evaluate, and facilitate virtual community-engaged implementation research
We highlight key strategies for documenting and assessing community engagement. Our methods allowed for rich ethnographic data collection that refined our work with community partners. We recommend ongoing trainings, including debriefing sessions and routinely reviewed assessment of data to strengthen meaningful community engagement
Ethnographic Methods for Identifying Cultural Concepts of Distress
We review ethnographic methods that allow researchers to assess distress in a culturally sensitive manner. We begin with an overview of standardized biomedical and psychological approaches to assessing distress cross-culturally. We then focus on literature describing the development of reliable and valid culturally sensitive assessment tools that can serve as complements or alternatives to biomedical categories and diagnostic frameworks. The meth…
Challenges in simultaneous validation of mental health screening tools in multiple languages
Background: With growing global recognition of the need to address mental health, a key challenge is determining who needs mental health services. Most self-report screening tools were developed in English-speaking high-income settings, and this cultural milieu influences the types and content of items, the manner in which items are asked, and the options for responding to items. Approaches have been developed for transcultural translation and va…
Culture-bound syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural concepts of distress
Treatment Preferences for Pharmacological versus Psychological Interventions among Primary Care Providers in Nepal
There is increasing evidence supporting the effectiveness of psychological interventions in low- and middle-income countries. However, primary care providers (PCPs) may prefer treating patients with medication. A secondary exploratory analysis of a pilot cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted to evaluate psychological vs. pharmacological treatment preferences among PCPs. Thirty-four health facilities, including 205 PCPs, participated i…
Context Matters for Food Security
Anthropologists have long emphasized the social significance of foods and the contexts in which they are consumed. Expanding on this idea, we define the context of consumption as the non-eating behaviors that surround eating, such as the manner of food preparation, food sharing, and dietary patterns. In this study, we used cultural consensus analysis to assess whether there exist consistently shared, normative ideas about preferable context of fo…
Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research
Despite varied research topics and approaches to assessing saturation, studies converged on a relatively consistent sample size for saturation for commonly used qualitative research methods. However, these findings apply to certain types of studies (e.g., those with homogenous study populations). These results provide strong empirical guidance on effective sample sizes for qualitative research, which can be used in conjunction with the characteri…
Foundations of Somali resilience
These findings suggest that resilient outcomes among Somalis in San Diego are more likely to be promoted by community-based interventions that promote existing strengths and supports rather than focusing on individual coping mechanisms. There is a benefit to investing in community organizations and programs that support resilience-based interventions to overcome common mental disorders in this high-risk population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2…
Syndemics theory must take local context seriously
Understanding mental distress in Arcahaie, Haiti
Research on mental health in specific communities requires careful attention to cultural context and language. Studies on global mental health have increasingly analyzed idioms of distress, or culturally situated ways of conceptualizing, experiencing, and expressing distress. This study examines how idioms of distress are used and understood in Arcahaie, Haiti. The goal was to enrich current understanding of mental health conceptualization and co…
Flexible protocols and paused audio recorders
Lay-counselors have become a key human resource in the field of global mental health, aiming to address the estimated one-million-person shortage of mental healthcare providers. However, the role of lay-counselors is ambiguous and in tension: their role is quasi-professional, with specific training and skills that set them apart within communities, yet their role is also defined in contrast to professional mental healthcare providers. We explore …
Assessment of Health Insurance Benefit Mandates for Fertility Preservation Among 11 US States
In this qualitative assessment of 11 state-level FP benefit mandates, variation that may influence patient access was identified in the design and implementation of the mandates. As clinical stakeholders aim to understand and/or shape these laws and their implementation, key considerations included specificity and flexibility of benefit design to be clinically meaningful, expansion of clinical practice guidelines to inform benefit coverage, inclu…
Identification of optimal thalassemia screening strategies for migrant populations in Thailand using a qualitative approach
An effective thalassemia prevention and control program should offer migrants targeted thalassemia education and outreach, universal coverage for thalassemia screening and prenatal care, and options for carrier screening, providing a comprehensive strategy for reducing the incidence of severe thalassemia in Thailand and establishing an inclusive model for regional thalassemia prevention and control
Traditional Healers and Mental Health in Nepal
Agricultural wealth better predicts mental wellbeing than market wealth among highly vulnerable households in Haiti
OBJECTIVES: Lack of wealth (poverty) impacts almost every aspect of human biology. Accordingly, many studies include its assessment. In almost all cases, approaches to assessing poverty are based on lack of success within cash economies (eg, lack of income, employment). However, this operationalization deflects attention from alternative forms of poverty that may have the most substantial influence on human wellbeing. We test how a multidimension…
Problematic alcohol use among fathers in Kenya
Culture-bound syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural concepts of distress
This issue of Transcultural Psychiatry showcases some recent work on idioms of distress – the latest in a long line of anthropological research concerned with cross-cultural concepts and experiences of distress. Mark Nichter’s (1981) seminal paper introducing idioms of distress has become a cynosure for psychological anthropology and transcultural psychiatry. A growing body of work has since accumulated; however, the last time a collection of suc…
Perceived Feasibility, Acceptability, and Cultural Adaptation for a Mental Health Intervention in Rural Haiti
Adapting culturally appropriate mental health screening tools for use among conflict-affected and other vulnerable adolescents in Nigeria
Culturally adapting screening tools represents a vital first step toward improving community case detection
Mental health and psychosocial support needs among people displaced by Boko Haram in Nigeria
Since 2013, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has left almost 2 million people displaced and 10 million in need of life-saving services. While the humanitarian response has focused on provision of food, shelter, and physical health needs, mental health needs remain largely overlooked. This mixed-methods project explored the mental health and psychosocial (MHPS) burden, existing resources and coping mechanisms, and remaining needs among interna…
What Influences Saturation? Estimating Sample Sizes in Focus Group Research
Saturation is commonly used to determine sample sizes in qualitative research, yet there is little guidance on what influences saturation. We aimed to assess saturation and identify parameters to estimate sample sizes for focus group studies in advance of data collection. We used two approaches to assess saturation in data from 10 focus group discussions. Four focus groups were sufficient to identify a range of new issues (code saturation), but m…
Idioms of resilience among cancer patients in urban South Africa
Despite the large body of research on idioms of distress in anthropology and transcultural psychiatry, few scholars have examined the concepts that people use to describe social and psychological resilience. The experience of social and psychological resilience is embedded in and shaped by social, political, and economic contexts-much like the factors that shape idioms of distress. As resilience literature more broadly has adopted a socio-ecologi…
Code Saturation Versus Meaning Saturation
Saturation is a core guiding principle to determine sample sizes in qualitative research, yet little methodological research exists on parameters that influence saturation. Our study compared two approaches to assessing saturation: code saturation and meaning saturation. We examined sample sizes needed to reach saturation in each approach, what saturation meant, and how to assess saturation. Examining 25 in-depth interviews, we found that code sa…
Idioms of distress, ethnopsychology, and the clinical encounter in Haiti's Central Plateau
Strategies for assessing mental health in Haiti
The lack of culturally appropriate mental health assessment instruments is a major barrier to screening and evaluating efficacy of interventions. Simple translation of questionnaires produces misleading and inaccurate conclusions. Multiple alternate approaches have been proposed, and this study compared two approaches tested in rural Haiti. First, an established transcultural translation process was used to develop Haitian Kreyòl versions of the …
What Influences Saturation? Estimating Sample Sizes in Focus Group Research
Saturation is commonly used to determine sample sizes in qualitative research, yet there is little guidance on what influences saturation. We aimed to assess saturation and identify parameters to estimate sample sizes for focus group studies in advance of data collection. We used two approaches to assess saturation in data from 10 focus group discussions. Four focus groups were sufficient to identify a range of new issues (code saturation), but m…
Reflechi twòp-Thinking Too Much
Developing and Testing Locally Derived Mental Health Scales
Cross-cultural studies of mental health and illness generally adhere to one of two agendas: the comparison of mental health between sites using standard measurement tools, or the identification of locally specific ways of discussing mental illness. Here, we illustrate a methodological approach to measuring mental health that unites these two agendas. Using examples from our work in India and Haiti, we show how researchers can use mixed methods to…
Idioms of resilience among cancer patients in urban South Africa
Despite the large body of research on idioms of distress in anthropology and transcultural psychiatry, few scholars have examined the concepts that people use to describe social and psychological resilience. The experience of social and psychological resilience is embedded in and shaped by social, political, and economic contexts-much like the factors that shape idioms of distress. As resilience literature more broadly has adopted a socio-ecologi…
Perceived discrimination, humiliation, and mental health
Both qualitative and quantitative methods suggest that perceived discrimination and the experience of humiliation contribute to Haitian migrant mental ill-health and limit access to health care. Future research should evaluate these associations and identify intervention pathways for both improved treatment access and reduction of discrimination-related health risk factors
Development and validation of a Haitian Creole screening instrument for depression
Developing mental health care capacity in postearthquake Haiti is hampered by the lack of assessments that include culturally bound idioms Haitians use when discussing emotional distress. The current paper describes a novel emic-etic approach to developing a depression screening for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante. In Study 1 Haitian key informants were asked to classify symptoms and describe categories within a pool of symptoms of common mental…
Suicide in rural Haiti
Syndemics theory must take local context seriously
Sent Spirits, Meaning-Making, and Agency in Haiti
In Haiti, a "sent spirit" is an experience of misfortune, such as an illness or accident, which is interpreted as intentionally sent by someone supernaturally. Sent spirits are fundamentally social narratives, reflecting links among social inequality, structural violence, and solidarity. This article focuses on the ethnographic stories of two women who experienced the death of a daughter, with one attributing the death to her own inability to car…
Ethnographic Methods for Identifying Cultural Concepts of Distress
We review ethnographic methods that allow researchers to assess distress in a culturally sensitive manner. We begin with an overview of standardized biomedical and psychological approaches to assessing distress cross-culturally. We then focus on literature describing the development of reliable and valid culturally sensitive assessment tools that can serve as complements or alternatives to biomedical categories and diagnostic frameworks. The meth…
Scale properties of the Kreyòl Distress Idioms (KDI) screener
Psychiatric instruments have limitations cross-culturally due to variations in conceptualizations and communication of mental distress. We evaluated a locally-developed screening tool for measuring mental distress in rural Haiti. We employed mixed methods to develop the Kreyòl Distress Idioms (KDI) screening tool. We piloted the KDI in an epidemiologic survey (n = 408) and assessed it using principal component analysis and comparison with the Bec…
Foundations of Somali resilience
These findings suggest that resilient outcomes among Somalis in San Diego are more likely to be promoted by community-based interventions that promote existing strengths and supports rather than focusing on individual coping mechanisms. There is a benefit to investing in community organizations and programs that support resilience-based interventions to overcome common mental disorders in this high-risk population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2…
Cholera control and anti-Haitian stigma in the Dominican Republic
As cholera spread from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, Haitian migrants, a largely undocumented and stigmatized population in Dominican society, became a focus of public health concern. Concurrent to the epidemic, the Dominican legislature enacted new documentation requirements. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of anti-Haitian stigma in the Dominican Republic from June to August 2012. Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) w…
Understanding mental distress in Arcahaie, Haiti
Research on mental health in specific communities requires careful attention to cultural context and language. Studies on global mental health have increasingly analyzed idioms of distress, or culturally situated ways of conceptualizing, experiencing, and expressing distress. This study examines how idioms of distress are used and understood in Arcahaie, Haiti. The goal was to enrich current understanding of mental health conceptualization and co…
Rockefeller University's Science Outreach
Explanatory Models and Mental Health Treatment
What predicts breast cancer rates? Testing hypotheses of the demographic and nutrition transitions
Idioms of distress, ethnopsychology, and the clinical encounter in Haiti's Central Plateau
Suicide in rural Haiti
Strategies for assessing mental health in Haiti
The lack of culturally appropriate mental health assessment instruments is a major barrier to screening and evaluating efficacy of interventions. Simple translation of questionnaires produces misleading and inaccurate conclusions. Multiple alternate approaches have been proposed, and this study compared two approaches tested in rural Haiti. First, an established transcultural translation process was used to develop Haitian Kreyòl versions of the …
Cultural concepts of distress and psychiatric disorders
BACKGROUND: Burgeoning global mental health endeavors have renewed debates about cultural applicability of psychiatric categories. This study's goal is to review strengths and limitations of literature comparing psychiatric categories with cultural concepts of distress (CCD) such as cultural syndromes, culture-bound syndromes, and idioms of distress. METHODS: The Systematic Assessment of Quality in Observational Research (SAQOR) was adapted based…
Perceived discrimination, humiliation, and mental health
Both qualitative and quantitative methods suggest that perceived discrimination and the experience of humiliation contribute to Haitian migrant mental ill-health and limit access to health care. Future research should evaluate these associations and identify intervention pathways for both improved treatment access and reduction of discrimination-related health risk factors
Reflechi twòp-Thinking Too Much
Thinking too much”
Scale properties of the Kreyòl Distress Idioms (KDI) screener
Psychiatric instruments have limitations cross-culturally due to variations in conceptualizations and communication of mental distress. We evaluated a locally-developed screening tool for measuring mental distress in rural Haiti. We employed mixed methods to develop the Kreyòl Distress Idioms (KDI) screening tool. We piloted the KDI in an epidemiologic survey (n = 408) and assessed it using principal component analysis and comparison with the Bec…
Developing and Testing Locally Derived Mental Health Scales
Cross-cultural studies of mental health and illness generally adhere to one of two agendas: the comparison of mental health between sites using standard measurement tools, or the identification of locally specific ways of discussing mental illness. Here, we illustrate a methodological approach to measuring mental health that unites these two agendas. Using examples from our work in India and Haiti, we show how researchers can use mixed methods to…
Development and validation of a Haitian Creole screening instrument for depression
Developing mental health care capacity in postearthquake Haiti is hampered by the lack of assessments that include culturally bound idioms Haitians use when discussing emotional distress. The current paper describes a novel emic-etic approach to developing a depression screening for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante. In Study 1 Haitian key informants were asked to classify symptoms and describe categories within a pool of symptoms of common mental…
Measuring material wealth in low‐income settings
Although wealth is consistently found to be an important predictor of health and well‐being, there remains debate as to the best way to conceptualize and operationalize wealth. In this article, we focus on the measurement of economic resources, which is one among many forms of wealth. We provide an overview of the process of measuring material wealth, including theoretical and conceptual considerations, a how‐to guide based on the most common app…
Retention in HIV care depends on patients’ perceptions of the clinic experience
Institutional barriers in HIV primary care settings can contribute substantially to disparities in retention in HIV treatment and HIV-related outcomes. This qualitative study compared the perceptions of clinic experiences of persons living with HIV (PLWH) in a Veterans Affairs HIV primary care clinic setting who were retained in care with the experiences of those who were not retained in care. Qualitative data from 25 in-depth interviews were ana…
Code Saturation Versus Meaning Saturation
Saturation is a core guiding principle to determine sample sizes in qualitative research, yet little methodological research exists on parameters that influence saturation. Our study compared two approaches to assessing saturation: code saturation and meaning saturation. We examined sample sizes needed to reach saturation in each approach, what saturation meant, and how to assess saturation. Examining 25 in-depth interviews, we found that code sa…
Culture-bound syndromes, idioms of distress, and cultural concepts of distress
This issue of Transcultural Psychiatry showcases some recent work on idioms of distress – the latest in a long line of anthropological research concerned with cross-cultural concepts and experiences of distress. Mark Nichter’s (1981) seminal paper introducing idioms of distress has become a cynosure for psychological anthropology and transcultural psychiatry. A growing body of work has since accumulated; however, the last time a collection of suc…
Perceived Feasibility, Acceptability, and Cultural Adaptation for a Mental Health Intervention in Rural Haiti
Adapting culturally appropriate mental health screening tools for use among conflict-affected and other vulnerable adolescents in Nigeria
Culturally adapting screening tools represents a vital first step toward improving community case detection
Mental health and psychosocial support needs among people displaced by Boko Haram in Nigeria
Since 2013, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has left almost 2 million people displaced and 10 million in need of life-saving services. While the humanitarian response has focused on provision of food, shelter, and physical health needs, mental health needs remain largely overlooked. This mixed-methods project explored the mental health and psychosocial (MHPS) burden, existing resources and coping mechanisms, and remaining needs among interna…
What Influences Saturation? Estimating Sample Sizes in Focus Group Research
Saturation is commonly used to determine sample sizes in qualitative research, yet there is little guidance on what influences saturation. We aimed to assess saturation and identify parameters to estimate sample sizes for focus group studies in advance of data collection. We used two approaches to assess saturation in data from 10 focus group discussions. Four focus groups were sufficient to identify a range of new issues (code saturation), but m…
Idioms of resilience among cancer patients in urban South Africa
Despite the large body of research on idioms of distress in anthropology and transcultural psychiatry, few scholars have examined the concepts that people use to describe social and psychological resilience. The experience of social and psychological resilience is embedded in and shaped by social, political, and economic contexts-much like the factors that shape idioms of distress. As resilience literature more broadly has adopted a socio-ecologi…
Sent Spirits, Meaning-Making, and Agency in Haiti
In Haiti, a "sent spirit" is an experience of misfortune, such as an illness or accident, which is interpreted as intentionally sent by someone supernaturally. Sent spirits are fundamentally social narratives, reflecting links among social inequality, structural violence, and solidarity. This article focuses on the ethnographic stories of two women who experienced the death of a daughter, with one attributing the death to her own inability to car…
Cholera control and anti-Haitian stigma in the Dominican Republic
As cholera spread from Haiti to the Dominican Republic, Haitian migrants, a largely undocumented and stigmatized population in Dominican society, became a focus of public health concern. Concurrent to the epidemic, the Dominican legislature enacted new documentation requirements. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study of anti-Haitian stigma in the Dominican Republic from June to August 2012. Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) w…
Agricultural wealth better predicts mental wellbeing than market wealth among highly vulnerable households in Haiti
OBJECTIVES: Lack of wealth (poverty) impacts almost every aspect of human biology. Accordingly, many studies include its assessment. In almost all cases, approaches to assessing poverty are based on lack of success within cash economies (eg, lack of income, employment). However, this operationalization deflects attention from alternative forms of poverty that may have the most substantial influence on human wellbeing. We test how a multidimension…
Psychology (33 works) · Psychiatry (24 works) · Mental health (23 works) · Medicine (21 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Clinical Psychology (15 works) · Distress (14 works) · Mental Health Treatment and Access (14 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (12 works)