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For the past five years, Chris Grady has been drawing his experiences as a dad and sharing them in a web comic called Lunarbaboon. Grady has a 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. His comic offers a humorous take on classic parenting struggles, from noisy toys to toddler tantrums.

Many of his drawings, however, also feature more earnest messages about tolerance, empathy and being a force for good in an often dark world. 

Grady, who works as an elementary school teacher in Toronto, told HuffPost he created Lunarbaboon as a form of therapy to deal with his anxiety.  “I needed a positive place to focus all my thoughts and found that when I was making comics I felt a little bit better,” he said. “After posting the comics on social media for a few months, I began getting messages from many people about how they connected to the comics and it gave them hope and strength as they went through their own dark times.”

As Lunarbaboon gained a bigger following, Grady decided to use his popularity for good. He often draws comics with positive messages that touch on social justice, gender issues, xenophobia and more.

“I think it is impossible not to be influenced by the world around you. There is a lot of bad things happening in the world, but there is also a lot of good,” he said. “I try to find the good or humorous in the difficult things that happen to us every day.”

Grady noted that his wife influences his work as well. “I am very lucky to be married to a very smart, strong, opinionated person who is constantly fighting against injustice,” he explained. “A lot of what she and I talk about on a daily basis makes it into the comics.”

The response to Grady’s work has been positive. “People like knowing they aren’t alone in life’s daily struggles,” he said. Today, Lunarbaboon has more than 900,000 followers on Facebook. In April, Andrews McMeel Publishing released a book compilation of Grady’s comics called Lunarbaboon: The Daily Life of Parenthood.

As a teacher and a father, Grady aims to mold young minds into caring, thoughtful members of their communities.  “I want both my kids and my students to grow up to be good people,” he explained. “Kids are always watching adults, and they look to the adults as role models. I try to show them that even with all my flaws and weaknesses, I am still a good person, and I can still make a positive change in the world.”

“Nobody is powerless in this world, as humans we have the ability to change another person’s day by what we put out,” he added, noting that this mindset sometimes seeps into his comics. Grady told HuffPost he hopes his comic brings people joy and inspires them to spread positivity to those around him, even in difficult times. “Although we don’t have complete control over our thoughts and emotions as we go through life, we do have control over our actions,” he said. “So do good things with your life.”

Read more and see the Lunarbaboon comics at HuffPost.com

Some of the smallest and historically neglected racial groups in the United States experience far more obesity, diabetes and other health conditions than non-Hispanic white adults, a study by researchers at the University of California, Riverside has found.

Using data for nearly 185,000 adults from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the study reports that multiracial, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) and American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN) adults in California endure large obesity and diabetes-related health disparities that exceed those experienced by non-Hispanic white adults, and, in many cases, other racial minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics.

The study, published in the journal Obesity, is among the first large-scale, population-based investigations to explore the presence of major health disparities affecting multiracial, NHOPI and AIAN adults. Drawing from years of statewide California data, it is also one of the most accurate estimates to date of obesity-related health disparities affecting these understudied groups.

Most health data only code participants into standard non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, African American and Asian American racial categories, while excluding multiracial, NHOPI and AIAN individuals from analysis. For example, almost all health data about Pacific Islanders are grouped with Asian Americans, who tend to be healthier.

“This poses a problem because Pacific Islanders are at very high risk for poor health, yet receive few targeted services or research attention,” said Andrew M. Subica, an assistant professor of social medicine, population, and public health in the School of Medicine. “In general, the small population sizes of multiracial, NHOPI and AIAN populations make it hard to examine these groups individually. As a result, comparatively little is known about the health disparities of these neglected minority populations — a gap that could hide potential problems and impede the delivery of effective care.”

“What makes NHOPIs and AIANs important to study is that they are frequently overlooked and marginalized within the U.S. despite many of their native homelands or tribal nations suffering significant historical trauma and loss at the hands of the U.S. government,” Subica said. “For multiracial individuals, they compose the second fastest growing U.S. racial group, yet we know very little about their health. Our findings are surprising in showing that multiracial adults in California are quite health-poor, displaying a pattern of health disparities that is most similar to AIANs, who have the worst health outcomes in our study.”

To explain these disparities, Subica and his colleagues examined possible differences in social factors. They found that adults from every racial minority group studied had lower levels of education, health insurance coverage, and greater poverty than non-Hispanic white adults, but that these factors only partially contributed to health disparities. Subica speculated that exposure to racism and its negative health impact may play a greater role in driving obesity-related racial disparities than previously anticipated by suppressing minorities’ social and economic opportunities, capital, and health care access. More research is needed, he said, to examine the influence of racism and other race-related social factors on health disparities.

Read more on UniversityofCalifornia.edu.

The Emerging Scholars Fellowship seeks proposals for unique and thought-provoking research or creative projects related to mental health. The Emerging Scholars Fellowship program encourages creativity in the development of a project that reflects interest in behavioral health issues; a wide range of project types are likely to receive funding. Each Emerging Scholars project must include a public dissemination component such as a public lecture, film screening, website, blog or installation/exhibit. The public dissemination component of Fellowship projects is meant to provide an opportunity for productive mental health dialogue and learning among peers, faculty and each scholar’s greater campus community.

During the six month fellowship program – which includes both online and in-person components – scholars will complete their projects, build a peer network, connect professionally with a national mentor and gain experience distributing their content to college audiences. To support their work, scholars will be awarded a $1,000 stipend and may also apply for an additional $250 in reimbursement for project material expenses.

The Fellowship encourages proposals from all interested undergraduate and graduate students across the U.S. and is dedicated to maximizing diversity within the Scholar network. Participation in the Emerging Scholars Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for leadership development and mentorship in the field of mental health. Scholars are required to apply with a campus advisor in mind to help support and guide the project. Scholars will also be matched with an Emerging Scholars Fellowship mentor. Mentors will review and approve monthly progress reports from scholars, as well as provide overall project guidance and support.

Exemplary projects will be selected for presentation at the Active Minds National Mental Health on Campus Conference. Scholars whose projects are selected will have the opportunity to present their project at a national conference and share their findings and research with student mental health advocates from across the country. 

How to Apply

Download the 2018 Call for Proposals application (pdf). Complete your proposal by answering the questions in the document according to the guidelines. Please submit your completed proposal, a one-page C.V. or resume and one letter of recommendation using Active Minds’ online form. Once you access the form, you will need to fill in general contact information, attach/upload all necessary documents, and then click “submit.”

Proposals will be accepted until Sunday, December 10 – 11:30pm ET.  Preference will be given to early submissions. Applicants will be notified by January 10, 2018.

Learn more at ActiveMinds.org.

Taxi driver Derek Devoy was leading a secretive double life. In the mornings, he got out of bed, got dressed and ready for work, but as soon as his wife and children left the house, he went back to bed again. He kept up the pretence for eight months, until the bank came calling, threatening to repossess his home. “As a self-employed taxi driver, if I don’t show up for work, I don’t earn any money,” the County Kilkenny man told BBC News NI.

For months, he had been struggling to cope with a serious back injury, caused when a drunk driver crashed into the back of his car at a checkpoint. He underwent a number of rounds of surgery, but said that after each operation, his mental health worsened. “I just got lower and lower,” Derek recalled, adding he spent his days in bed, crying.

Faced with losing his family home, he said he started to think his wife and children would be “better off without me”, and made three attempts at suicide. The morning after his third attempt, he contacted his doctor and finally asked for help to deal with his depression.

Eventually, with medical treatment and counselling, Derek was able to return work. But on his first night back in his taxi, he saw a distressed man on a bridge in Kilkenny. He stopped his cab and spoke to the stranger, asking him why he was trying to kill himself. “He told me the bank was trying to repossess his house,” Derek recalled. Was it coincidence or fate that Derek happened to be passing the bridge at the time? He doesn’t know, but he does know he was able to use his own personal experience to help the suicidal man.

The experience had a deep effect on Derek. He decided to undergo training, and completed the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) course.

Knowing that other taxi drivers must have seen similar sights, he encouraged 15 of his work colleagues to do the course. The then mayor of Kilkenny allowed them to use his council chamber as a training centre. The venture became known as Taxi Watch – which since its foundation in 2014 has “directly intervened” in almost 200 suicide attempts. Derek said that as well as intervening in suicide attempts, Taxi Watch volunteers have helped “hundreds more” to access counselling.

Derek continues to draw on his personal experience to help people in their darkest moments and said his own history of depression has made him a more effective counsellor. “People want to know that you’ve gone through it,” he said. “They don’t want to talk to professors. You need people who have been there – and come out the other side – to speak out.”

Read more on BBC.com.

When filmmakers Ann S. Kim and Priya Giri Desai stepped into Dr. Suniti Solomon’s office in April 2008, they knew they weren’t meeting any ordinary doctor.  Having discovered India’s first case of HIV in 1986 and founded one of the country’s foremost AIDS clinics, the physician was now providing her patients with matchmaking services in addition to medical care.

“Lovesick” follows Solomon — who died in 2015 — and two of her patients, Karthik and Manu, as they navigate a society in which the filmmakers said marriage is a non-negotiable, but where relentless stigmas against HIV and AIDS makes it near-impossible for anyone to make their diagnosis public, let alone find a life partner. Comparing viral loads and white blood cell counts alongside standard matchmaking criteria like religion and income, Solomon and her team play Cupid, working to bridge the gaps between social norms and unspeakable taboos.

After a combined 36 years in public health reporting and television production, the filmmakers said they saw a rare opportunity with Solomon to illuminate an often-hidden side of life with HIV and AIDS. “The human experience angle offered an interesting contrast from the data-driven ways this issue is usually addressed,” Kim said.

Although the filming process culminated in some surprise payoffs for the audience, it also underscored several persisting social stigmas in India. “These people are part of a community that looks down on everything they’re living, whether it’s being single, childless, or HIV-positive,” Desai said. “They need explanations for it all without giving themselves away. That the doctor was empathetic enough to help them find answers for the next person who questioned them, was an incredible gift.”

Solomon was especially well-prepared for the job, the filmmakers noted, given that she had skirted convention throughout her own life. When other doctors recoiled from treating patients during the early days of HIV, she took an early retirement from a high-powered research position at Madras Medical College to establish the YRG Care Centre for AIDS Research and Education, the filmmakers said. She was married late by traditional standards to her longtime love, a Christian from southern India, rather than a partner chosen for her by her Hindu family. Unlike most women of her generation, she had just one child.

Her choices, the filmmakers said, reflected an attitude that proved invaluable for her patients: a thorough awareness of cultural norms, but little sense of obligation to adhere to them. Desai and Kim observed that she thought nothing of introducing a woman from Chennai in eastern India to a man based in Mumbai in western India if they seemed otherwise well-suited on paper. Knowing that geographic mobility and inter-community marriages were uncommon for most of her clients’ socio-economic standing, she’d urge them to tell questioning relatives that they simply fell in love.

Marriage has allowed Solomon’s patients more than life without ostracism, Kim, who worked as chief design officer for former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, noted. “‘Lovesick’ is a testament to the increasing evidence around the human costs of loneliness, and these couples embody the science pointing to social connections as fundamental to human health,” Kim said.

Viral loads, white blood cell counts, and adherence to treatment regimes have been known to improve once couples marry, she added. “Dr. Solomon’s matchmaking doesn’t just make for nice stories. It has truly helped people manage their disease,” Kim said.

Above all, the filmmakers aim to demonstrate modern love in the face of continued global stigma against HIV and AIDS. “Populations everywhere, from Eastern Europe to the Asian-American community here in the United States, are struggling with it. People haven’t considered what it means to be HIV-positive and find love, even though it’s such a universal need,” said Desai. “We hope ‘Lovesick’ opens that conversation by showing that a life of dignity is possible after a positive diagnosis.”

Read more on NBCNews.com

Last week on an NPR program, there was a conversation about how the opioid crisis is affecting African-Americans and Latinos. NPR felt that it was necessary because so much of the news coverage has focused on the white rural experience, which while important, is not the only one.  Now NPR’s Michel Martin looks at how the crisis is affecting Native Americans. 

For some insight, he called Dr. Ron Shaw, the president of the Association of American Indian Physicians:

MARTIN: So, Dr. Shaw, it is a fact that white rural communities have been hit especially hard by this opioid crisis. But we were looking at a report from the Centers for Disease Control that said that, actually, the death rate of Native Americans from opioid overdoses was the highest of any racial demographic. Some 8.4 per 100,000 Native Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2014. Can you tell me more about that?

SHAW: Well, I believe that in any population where there are a depressed or a low socioeconomic status, any time you have those issues, people are more vulnerable to opiate overdose. Now for Native Americans, many Native American populations suffer from what is known as historical and intergenerational trauma, which has to do with historical events that have afflicted Native American tribes, everything from Wounded Knee to other issues that have affected us culturally that have caused kind of a historical shame that has transmitted across generations, even to succeeding generations, that it has been shown to be associated with increased rates of depression, drug use and drug addiction. So that’s the additional issue faced by Native Americans and perhaps more sensitive in those populations that live in reservation areas.

MARTIN: From the work that you’ve seen and the work that you’ve done yourself, what do you think are the best ways to treat this problem with a particular focus on Indian country and Native American communities?

SHAW: I think the two most important pieces are, first of all, this is a biological disease at its core, whatever the reason is. And we’re still finding out why experimental and recreational use in youth progresses more rapidly to opiate addiction in native populations. We’re still trying to find out the best practices for preventing or slowing that down. But the biological basis is a disorder in the reward pathway in the brain known as the mezal limbic system. An important part of that therapy has to be medication-assisted treatment.

Now, the psychosocial treatment of the disease, which has to do with social living skills and having to address historical generational intergenerational trauma, that will be specific for native populations. We’ve always known that culture is prevention when it comes to drug use or drug abuse at an early age, but culture also is treatment. And so implementing treatment specific and culturally relevant treatment items in the treatment curriculum are very important.

MARTIN: Is there anything giving you hope right now? I mean, what is giving you hope right now? What’s getting you up in the morning to keep working at this?

SHAW: As bad as it is that people are dying, it’s finally got people’s attention that this is an illness. And it’ll translate into proper illness funding for other substance use disorders. Because in Oklahoma, it’s still methamphetamine and alcohol. Who knows? Maybe before this battle has had some results, opioid use disorder and overdose deaths may increase in Oklahoma. But it’s affecting Indian country, so I’ve used my expertise for any community, even if it’s not particularly as high in the Osage nation right now.

Listen to the conversation or read the full transcript at NPR.org.