Augustine Cassis Obeng Boateng, MPH

Augustine Cassis Obeng Boateng, MPH is a PhD student in the department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences at Penn Nursing, and a Master of Bioethics student in the Medical Ethics and Health Policy department at the Perelman School of Medicine. Boateng is interested in the intersection between mental health, addiction, trauma, and spirituality across the lifespan. Specifically, he wants to know the role of spirituality in building resilience among African American families traumatized by community violence in West Philadelphia, and the neural correlates by which spirituality is expressed. To that end, his work aims at informing nursing education and training the next generation of nurses to become culturally competent in offering spiritual care. He uses geospatial analysis to understand people and places, and how specific neighborhood factors might contribute to mental health and spirituality. He is also interested in the role of spirituality and religion in health decisions and behaviors, as well as moral injury among veterans.