This study is conducting secondary analyses on data collected from an unprecedented, recent longitudinal study of young adult drinkers recruited from the community in WA State after adult marijuana use was legalized for recreational purposes, Project Transitions. Analyses will increase our knowledge of concurrent and simultaneous use of alcohol and marijuana across months, specifically examining substitution or complementary effects across substances and short-term potential consequences, and how reaching the legal age for marijuana influences trajectories of use. The project will provide answers to novel research questions that are of critical public health importance and have implications for young adult prevention and intervention strategies.
Funding Type: Federal
Project STEP
This project is designed to integrate basic and clinical science to translate mechanisms of recovery from PTSD to testing an intervention in individuals with PTSD and marijuana use. We will recruit 72 individuals with PTSD and varying levels of marijuana use, 36 with current heavy marijuana use and 36 without current marijuana use, to complete a conditional discrimination and extinction task in order to understand the relationship between marijuana and fear learning in individuals with pathological fear. Following this task, participants will receive a brief 6 session imaginal exposure protocol (IE) to explore whether this adapted short form treatment shows increased feasibility (efficacy, reduced drop out) for individuals with co-occurring PTSD and marijuana use. We will also be able to test the link between basic fear and recovery processes by looking at the extinction task as a predictor of treatment response for individuals with and without marijuana use. This research is significant in its potential to identify a predictor of treatment response, to test an underlying mechanism of recovery for PTSD in individuals with PTSD and co-occurring marijuana use, and to test feasibility of a novel intervention for a difficult to treat population.
MC2: Motivating Campus Change
The application was built on our prior intervention trials to further explore conditions under which normative feedback may reduce college drinking. Specifically, we proposed to contrast efficacy of personalized normative feedback (PNF) regarding specific reference groups (i.e., gender-, ethnicity-, and residence-specific feedback) versus a generic (typical college student) reference group, evaluate identification with the normative reference group in moderating efficacy of PNF regarding descriptive drinking norms, and evaluate unique and combined influences of PNF regarding descriptive and injunctive norms on drinking behavior.
mHealth Washington
The mHealth Washington team is partnering with 20 community agencies to implement FOCUS in multiple counties throughout Washington State. This implementation effectiveness trial aims to evaluate strategies to integrate mHealth into real-world clinical practice. The team is comprised of multi-discipline experts including academic researchers, policy makers, mental health advocates, Medicaid leaders and individuals with lived experience.
Discovering the capacity of primary care front-line staff to deliver a low-intensity technology-enhanced intervention to treat geriatric depression
This study will explore the feasibility of implementation of a technology-enhanced Evidence-Based Psychosocial Behavioral Intervention entitled Mobile Motivational Physical Activity Targeted Intervention (MobMPATI) by frontline primary care staff (e.g., nurses, medical assistants) to expand workforce capacity to deliver acceptable, sustainable, and effective treatment for depression in older adults.
mHealth in West Africa: developing an evidence-based psychosocial intervention toolkit
There is a shortage of skilled mental health providers in Ghana. Due to the prevalence of traditional faith healers, coupled with the established infrastructure that faith healers in Ghana have, global mental health leaders have argued that these paraprofessionals may be leveraged as conduits of basic illness management strategies.
This study aims to: 1) Employ user-centered mixed-method rapid ethnographic data collection strategies to conduct a targeted needs assessment, and 2) Distill and integrate findings from all data sources to identify content and usability requirements for a human-centered, culturally/contextually-informed multi-media mHealth toolkit for healers.
Mobile RDoC: Using smartphone technology to understand Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVH)
Using a mobile data collection system that leverages smartphone technology to capture an abundance of time-varying information both passively (i.e., behavioral sensing) and actively (e.g., Ecological Momentary Assessment or EMA) we aim to: 1) Evaluate whether need for care is associated with real-time/real-place AVH experience; 2) Examine relationships between baseline demographic and functional variables, time-varying social and contextual factors, and AVH; 3) Test relationships posited in a cognitive model of AVH.
Pilot study of mHealth for Veterans with serious mental illness
This project aims to examine the feasibility and acceptability of FOCUS, a mobile self-management intervention for individuals with serious mental illnesses. We will recruit 30 veterans receiving services at VA Puget Sound and provide FOCUS for one month, examining feasibility of integrating this intervention into outpatient VA services, acceptability to veterans, and preliminary outcomes including depression, psychotic symptoms, sleep, and recovery.
Assessing the Determinants and Antecedents of Persecutory Thoughts (ADAPT)
This project aims to deploy a mHealth assessment system in a national sample of individuals who experience persecutory ideation (PI). Specifically, we will (1) evaluate whether PI with need for clinical care is associated with differential phenomenology of PI – frequency, valence, conviction, appraisals, and behavioral responses, (2) examine relationships between baseline clinical, functional and demographic factors, time-varying contextual factors, and PI, and (3) test relationships posited in the cognitive model of PI.
Collaborating to Heal Addiction and Mental Health in Primary Care (CHAMP)
The gold-standard intervention for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD). Because more patients with OUD need access to MOUD in primary care, the AIMS Center at the University of Washington is testing a Collaborative Care model to treat mental health disorders and OUD concurrently in primary care settings. The CHAMP study addresses three important objectives including: 1) Can OUD screening be effectively incorporated into primary care mental health screening protocols?; 2) Does implementing Collaborative Care for OUD and mental health disorders improve outcomes?; 3) What implementation strategies are effective at sustaining Collaborative Care programs that concurrently manage mental health disorders and OUD? In this pragmatic trial, 24 primary care clinics will be randomized to either adding OUD to their Collaborative Care program or maintaining Collaborative Care for mental health disorders only.
