PhD Candidate in Family Science and Human Development at Montclair State University
Elvis Gyan, MA, MDiv, is a Ghanaian-American born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. He is a follower of Christ, educator, leader, brother, son, friend, and speaker. Elvis has a deep passion for understanding better structural factors that create barriers to the well-being of African Americans. Elvis is passionate about educating marginalized populations through better, culturally sensitive, socially just, transformative, and non-Eurocentric relationship education services. Elvis also consults for several organizations in the government sector, nonprofit sectors, and academia. Elvis is pursuing a PhD in Family Science and Human Development at Montclair State University. He plans to focus on African American individuals’ and couples’ health through a social determinant of health framework. When Elvis is not working, reading, or writing, you can find him engaging in anything fitness-related or eating joloff rice.
My research looks to address two gaps. First, Eurocentricity does not consider a critical social justice lens, such as the influence of community context on Black/African American individuals and relational health. However, as stated by the World Health Organization (2003), the conditions in which people live, grow, and age, taken together as a community context, are essential to Black/African American overall health. Additionally, Eurocentricity does not include a critical social justice understanding of Black/African Americans and fails to consider social determinants of health, as the World Health Organization expresses. Secondly, Eurocentricity fails to consider a critical social justice lens of the impact of class and structural barriers (e.g., racism, discrimination, economic instability) that Black/African Americans encounter and how these barriers may impede individual and relational health promotion. Intervention services and relationship education programs often are Eurocentric in their theorizing and design. However, these programs and services use a Eurocentric lens to theorize Black/African American relational health. These are two significant gaps in research on Black/African American individuals and relational health.