We had another strong showing in the UW Population Health Initiative Research Grants, with three of the eight newly funded proposals including psychiatry and behavioral sciences faculty. The $50,000 pilot research grants encourages new interdisciplinary collaborations among investigators for projects that address critical components of the grand challenges the UW seeks to address in population health. This year’s awardees were selected from a pool of 33 applications from faculty investigators representing the UW Bothell and UW Tacoma campuses as well as nearly every school and college on the UW Seattle Campus.

Lethal Means Assessment in Psychiatric Emergency Services for Suicide Prevention
Paul Borghesani, Anna Ratzliff,Ali Rowhani-Rahbar (Epidemiology), Jennifer Stuber (Social Work), Frederick Rivara (Pediatrics)
Counseling on access to lethal means such as medications and firearms is an emerging approach to suicide prevention; however, currently little is known about its uptake and effectiveness in clinical settings. In 2017, Washington became the first state in the nation to require suicide prevention training for all healthcare providers. Leading experts have collaborated to develop All Patients Safe which is an interactive online training offering an engaging option for providers to become better skilled at suicide prevention. Future evaluations of All Patients Safe’s effectiveness will depend on a rigorous understanding of several indicators before the training went into effect. These indicators include the prevalence of access to lethal means, scope of practices to reduce access to them, and risk of subsequent suicide attempt and death among patients at high risk of suicide.

The team will conduct an investigation among patients presenting to Psychiatric Emergency Services at Harborview Medical Center over the last decade to provide this much needed information as the first step toward our overarching goal of promoting the uptake of lethal means counseling and reducing the rate of suicide attempt and death in Washington.

Mama Ammaan (Safe Mother) Project: African Mother-to-Mother Antenatal Assistance Network
Myra Parker, James Pfeiffer (Global Health), Rachel Chapman (Anthropology), Bonnie Duran (Social Work), Melissa Mugambi (Global Health), Michelle Terry (Pediatrics)
Southeast Seattle reports the highest rates of preterm/low birthweight babies, cesarean births, women receiving inadequate perinatal care and unmet mental health needs in Washington. These communities are located in a federally designated Medically Underserved Area, indicating primary care service shortages.

The proposed pilot is collaboration among Somali Health Board, Health Alliance International, Parent Trust, and UW to test the feasibility of a community-based doulas and nurses-led culturally-adapted Group Prenatal Care (GPC) and home-visitation service model. If feasible, researchers will use findings to seek larger controlled trial funding to test a culturally-adapted GPC and doula model to improve perinatal outcomes in Southeast Seattle. Using a multidirectional learning approach, the team seeks to cross-fertilize by capacity-building for future implementation in other underserved, perinatally-vulnerable communities (including American Indian, Alaskan Native and African American), and strengthening community researcher capacity to meet community needs.

Using Digital Learning Tools to Enhance Emotional Regulation for Youth Hospitalized for Aggressive Crises
Carol Rockhill, Annie Chen (Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education)
Violence and aggressive behaviors are an urgent public health issue, with great costs including injury and death, fear and trauma, incarceration, unemployment, reduced mental and physical health, and loss of human potential. Reducing violence has local, national and international implications.

Inpatient hospitalization often occurs for aggressive youth after a crisis event, and inpatient treatment typically includes psychiatric evaluation, medication management, safety planning, and therapy meetings with the patient and parents. The team is proposing to use a technology-based set of personalizable Social Emotional Learning Tools developed and tested in education, juvenile justice, and partial psychiatric hospitalization environments with youth with behavior problems, with significant evidence of effectiveness. The researchers will conduct a three-part pilot study to evaluate feasibility and effectiveness in inpatient psychiatry.