In 2023, Washington state was awarded $6 million from the U.S. Department of Education to create a pipeline from Washington state’s five accredited Masters in Social Work training programs to K-12 schools. Called the Workforce for Student Well-being Initiative (WSW), 100 aspiring school social workers will receive conditional scholarships based on their financial need so the cost of getting an education is not a barrier to their getting an advanced degree and then committing to working in a high-need public or tribal school. The goal of the WSW is to help all K-12 students in Washington to thrive by advancing the careers of skilled school social work professionals through training and mentorship.
Targeted Condition: Alcohol use disorders/misuse
Global Health Experiential Fellowship
The Global Health Experiential Fellowship (GHEF) is a Global South–North simultaneous training program that prepares students and early-career professionals to become global health researchers. Based in rural Uganda, the fellowship offers immersive, mentored experience in study design, data collection, implementation science, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Fellows contribute to ongoing community-based research alongside local partners, gaining practical skills in ethical engagement, cross-cultural research, and field-based methods. GHEF provides a distinctive opportunity to build research capacity, strengthen career development, and contribute to locally led global health initiatives through Empower Through Health.
Raising Washington
A partnership to provide comprehensive perinatal mental health and parenting support for the first 1,000 days
The Raising Washington Initiative seeks to develop an evidence-based fully integrated perinatal support program that will offer mental health care, parent training and support services for the first 1,000 days of a baby’s life (conception through child’s 2nd birthday) for every high-risk baby born in Washington. This will include creating care pathways informed by the needs of patients and providers, navigators to help guide families through the many care transitions in the perinatal period and accessible information to keep parents and babies healthy.
To learn more this work, please contact Project Manager Lori Ferro, MHA at ljf9@uw.edu.
Empower Through Health
Empower Through Health (ETH) is a healthcare, research, and education 501c3 organization operating in rural eastern Uganda. ETH runs a health center that provides general medical care for surrounding communities and delivers psychiatric and neurological services across Buyende District (population >400,000). ETH’s research focuses on reducing demand-side barriers to care and partnering with existing community structures to improve mental health outcomes and support recovery after mental health crises. ETH hosts the Global Health Experiential Fellowship (GHEF), a hands-on training program that pairs Ugandan and U.S. trainees on community-engaged research. ETH is also expanding its education mission by launching a primary school to strengthen long-term community wellbeing.
Brain, Environment, and Alcohol Research (BEAR) Study
This project examines how brain responses to alcohol cues interact with everyday social contexts to shape drinking in young adult heavy drinkers. We pair multimodal neuroimaging (fMRI, EEG) with a 2-week ecological momentary assessment including transdermal alcohol monitoring and photo-based context capture. We test whether neural incentive salience predicts real-life intoxication, how social features (group size, familiarity, gender mix) influence drinking, and how perceived norms mediate these effects. We further assess whether incentive salience moderates context and norm influences. Findings will refine models of alcohol use disorder etiology and inform prevention and intervention strategies by linking precise brain markers with ecologically valid, context-rich assessments.
Developing a hospital-based treatment engagement program for Alcohol Use Disorder
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) frequently results in serious illness, injuries, and hospitalizations. Surviving illness or injuries related to alcohol use can motivate behavior change that could be harnessed through treatment engagement for AUD in the hospital; however, in general hospital settings, patients are rarely presented with more than a piece of paper with phone numbers to call for help with their drinking. This project is focused on designing and evaluating a shared decision making approach for AUD treatment in hospitalized patients. We are interviewing people who are hospitalized with complications of AUD to better understand their unique needs and preferences. We are using the knowledge gained from interviews with patients to adapt a paper-based decision aid that was originally designed to help clinic patients think about changing their drinking, and creating an interactive web-based interface, tailored to hospitalized patients. We will then evaluate the use and effectiveness of this new online decision aid for engaging hospitalized patients in AUD treatment. The overarching goal of this research is to more effectively use hospitalizations to bridge individuals to long-term, potentially lifesaving AUD care.
Validating changes in a primary-care based alcohol use screening instrument for predicting changes in risk for psychiatric acute care utilization
Approximately 20-25% of primary care patients have unhealthy alcohol use, which can have significant impacts on mental health. Screening for unhealthy alcohol use within primary care settings is increasingly used for point-in-time identification of people who could benefit from brief advice or brief interventions. My project will use a large, longitudinal, real-world dataset consisting of electronic health record (EHR) and insurance claims records to test whether longitudinal changes in alcohol screening scores completed by primary care patients as part of routine care are associated with changes in one-year risk for psychiatric acute care utilization (i.e., emergency department visit or hospital encounters primarily for a mental health condition).
Health Outcomes of Betting on Sports (Project HOBS)
Project HOBS is examining associations between sports betting, mental health, and substance use among young adults. Surveys are collected bi-weekly for one calendar year (25 follow-ups) and at a distal 15-month follow-up.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Outreach Communications Support
This project focused on assessing college students’ understanding of commonly used terms related to alcohol use and related consequences. Further, our team worked to update NIAAA statistics related to college student drinking and propose additional options for ongoing updates to their findings.
Using routine alcohol screening measures to identify 1-year risk of suicidal ideation, intent, and planning within a large primary care system in Washington
This study will use a large population-based primary care sample in Washington state to understand how heavy alcohol use and alcohol use disorder symptoms contribute to suicidal thoughts. This study will allow examination of how different levels of alcohol use can predict short term risk of suicidality and allow us to better identify and support patients at risk of suicide in the primary care setting.
