Meaningful social roles among young adolescents (P. Ballard, PhD, Wake Forest U; L.T. Hoyt, PhD, Fordham U) The AYAH Research Network is exploring meaningful social roles among young adolescents. The investigators will pilot an assessment tool for assessing meaningful social roles and examine correlations between meaningful social roles, health risk taking behaviors, and mental health, as well as moderation by…
August 4th, 2020 Primarily funded by an NIH, Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA), the HealthQuest program aims to develop the biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce through a multi-faceted program for middle-school students. The program includes interactive videos about different fields and the daily lives of professionals and a narrative-driven health sciences adventure game that allows youths, as well as tools for…
December 13th, 2018 INSPIRE builds on gaming techniques to create an environment in which teens participate in unfolding narratives that address peer pressure, social norms, and alternative consequences of alcohol use. Players adopt the role of a teenage protagonist who “relives” a high-school get-together involving alcohol, with virtual characters who model a range of health behaviors. Outcomes in the story line are actively shaped…
The AYAH-RN supported a weight stigma prevention project, led by Bryn Austin, PhD, in partnership with Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard University. This project pilot tested an on-line adaptation of an in-person training program to teach public health professionals strategies to mitigate weight stigma in obesity prevention campaigns. Participants develop an evidence-based health communication campaign focused on childhood obesity prevention that is…
Linkage between civic engagement in adolescence and physical and mental health status in young adulthood. The AYAH-RN supported Drs. Ballard, Hoyt and Pachucki et al in a research project that examined the link between civic engagement during late adolescence and early adulthood, and socioeconomic status and mental and physical health in adulthood, using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal…
Dr. Irwin, AYAH-RN co-Principal Investigator, authored a commentary published in the March 2017 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, with the AYAH-RN’s three review articles described above. The commentary reviewed major federal efforts in adolescent health, beginning with support for physician training programs in the 1960s. Efforts show an increasingly transdisciplinary approach in federal initiatives to improve adolescent and…
Review article on Clinical Preventive Services. (Harris SK, Aalsma MC, Weitzman ER, et al. Research on clinical preventive services for adolescents and young adults: Where are we and where do we need to go? J Adolesc Health. 2017; 60(3): 249-60.) AYAH-Research Network partners authored a review article on AYA clinical preventive services (CPS), examining evidence for increasing access to CPS,…
LEVERAGING NEUROSCIENCE TO INFORM ADOLESCENT HEALTH In this review article, AYAH-RN researchers consider how to leverage some of the rapid advances in developmental neuroscience in ways that can improve adolescent health. Led by Drs. Suleiman and Dahl (then at the University of California, Berkeley), the article provides a brief overview of several key areas of scientific progress relevant to these…
Parent-focused educational materials to prevent opioid abuse (S. Harris, PhD, BCH/HU) With support from the AYAH-RN, Dr. Sion Harris at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard University (BCH/HU) led a project to create on-line teaching materials to engage parents in helping prevent opioid abuse. The project built on existing parent education website materials developed by BCH/HU that address other substance abuse issues. The…
Technology as clinician extender in the delivery of clinical preventive services (C. Wong, MD, Duke U; E. Weitzman PhD & S. Harris, PhD BCH/HU; E. Ozer, PhD, UCSF) Led by Dr. Wong, this effort expands on the AYAH-RN’s review article on developmental science and a workshop presented at the 2017 SAHM meeting. Researchers published this work in a special supplement…
University of California San Francisco
