Targeted Condition: Heath risk behaviors/health behaviors

Workforce for Student Well-being Initiative (WSW)

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.

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.

COVID-19 pandemic and changes in the prevalence, patterns, and trajectories of substance use and related health risk outcomes among young adults in WA State

This project examines changes in young adult substance use, related health risk behaviors, and substance use-related risk factors from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults in WA state (where alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis sales and use are legal for adults age 21 and over) using the accelerated longitudinal cohort sequential data from the Washington Young Adult Health Study. Findings will inform tailoring and development of prevention and intervention efforts aimed at reducing health risk behaviors and improving public health in emergent situations that pose serious challenges for effective long-term planning of such efforts.

Cannabis legalization and changes in young adult substance use, related health risk behaviors, and risk factors in WA State (Project YAM)

This project involves analyses of data from the Washington State Young Adult Health Study to examine the impact of cannabis legalization on cannabis-related risk factors, substance use, and related health risk behaviors such as driving while intoxicated, and to study developmental trajectories of substance use and the role of community level and other cannabis-specific risk factors in the context of legalized cannabis among young adults in Washington State.