Mental Health Wellness

Addressing health disparities, especially in the face of coronavirus pandemic, requires an integrated multi-sector equity-focused, community-based approach. This study will examine the impact of Harlem Strong Community Mental Health Collaborative, a community-wide multi-sectoral coalition in which a health insurer works with a network of community-based organizations, medical providers, and behavioral health providers to engage in a network-wide implementation planning process to: (1) problem-solve financing, access, and quality of care barriers, (2) support capacity building for mental health (MH) task-sharing for community health workers, (3) facilitate coordination and collaboration across MH/behavioral health, primary care, and a range of social services, including case management, housing supports, financial education, employment support, and other community resources to improve linkages to services, and (4) identify a set of common MH, social risk, and health metrics and strategies to integrate these metrics into data systems across the network for continuous quality improvement of the system. The long-term goal of our study is to develop sustainable model for task-sharing MH care that will be embedded in a coordinated comprehensive network of services, including primary care, behavioral/MH, social services, and other community resources.

The goal of this study is to address a key health inequity - lack of community access to evidence-based programs to prevent chronic health conditions (e.g., Type 2 Diabetes) - by tailoring and delivering a family-based lifestyle and stress management intervention, Health Without Barriers/Salud Sin Barreras, for adolescents and their families living in rural Southwest Colorado. The intervention is a lifestyle program that addresses healthy lifestyle habits within the family context to support adolescent mental health (mindfulness intervention) and healthy weight (physical activity, nutrition, and parent education).

This novel, timely, and theory-driven Food-Body-Mind intervention addresses the national emergency of mental health crises in early childhood. By targeting Head Start racially/ethnically diverse preschoolers from low-income backgrounds in both urban and rural areas, this intervention is expected to contribute toward reducing health disparities and promoting health equity, a major priority of the NIH and Healthy People 2030. If effective, it can be scalable to Head Start programs across urban and rural settings nationally with long-term sustainability benefits.

The Norwegian government is implementing the Nurse Family Partnership program (NFP) to combat child abuse and social inequality. This study will examine NFP with an individually randomized controlled parallel-group trial. The study will enroll 700 mothers over three years, with half receiving NFP services and the other half receiving standard care. The primary outcome is violence towards mothers and their children, assessed through questionnaires and observation tests. The study will also evaluate the program's effects on various health-related outcomes using administrative data. Cost-effectiveness analyses will be conducted to compare NFP to existing services and improve its delivery efficiency.

The study aims to examine the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention and a mindfulness-based intervention with virtual reality on occupational balance and on the reduction of psychological distress in university students (i.e. stress, anxiety and depression). The specific objectives will be to examine the effects of the intervention on other variables related to mental health, psychological functioning and occupations, and their maintenance at three months.

Each year, one in five adolescents experiences a mental disorder like depression or anxiety, and the rate is rising. Depression is a common mental disorder, one of the leading global causes of Disability Adjusted Life Years among adolescents, and can lead to learning, behavioural and social impairment, as well as comorbid cardiovascular disease and mental illness in adulthood. An intervention is needed that can protect adolescents from mental disorders, is accessible to all adolescents, and is cheap and easy to sustain. One such intervention is mental health promotion, which focuses on improving positive behaviors and characteristics that protect mental health. There is already a strong evidence base for treatment and indicated prevention approaches, but a lack of research on mental health promotion interventions. In low resourced settings like Nepal, interventions need to be short of duration, and be carried out by lay people in the communities to make them sustainable and feasible to implement on a broader scale. The aim of this study is to develop and test the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention that uses sports groups to engage and improve the mental health of adolescents in Nepal.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a new, community-based, group intervention called FIESTA (Familias Inmigrantes Empoderándose contra eStrés Tomando Acción) to understand how well it helps Latinx immigrant families deal with the impact of stress due to structural racism. Structural racism is defined as the policies, practices, and norms that work together to limit equal opportunities for minority communities. For Latinx immigrant families, this can include fears of deportation, lack of bilingual providers, and discrimination. These experiences of structural racism can turn into stress, which impacts well-being and mental health. Researchers will investigate if: 1) FIESTA lowers stress and mental health symptoms (anxiety/depression) and increases feelings of empowerment, improved knowledge of resources, better parent-youth relationship quality, and higher use of healthy coping skills; and 2) FIESTA is feasible (easy to carry out), acceptable (agreeable or satisfactory), and appropriate (relevant to the needs of Latinx families). FIESTA is ten-sessions and will be led by two community health workers. Researchers will enroll 35 parent-adolescent dyads (35 study-eligible parents and 35 study-eligible youth) in the initial study. This study will randomize parent-youth dyads to the treatment arm or waitlist-control arm using block randomization. In other words, participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups, the First Group, or the Second Group. The First Group will begin immediately, and the Second Group will begin after three months. Data will be collected at baseline and three- and six-month post-baseline.

This study titled the Children to Adults Mental and Psychosomatic Health Study (CAMPS), aims to explore the interplay between mental health, psychosomatic factors, and adverse childhood experiences (ACE) across a broad age range, from school-age children to adults in China. The study will involve participants from various educational settings, including teachers, students, and parents, who will be recruited through schools. The assessment methodology will combine validated psychometric scales and behavioral experiments to comprehensively evaluate mental and physical health aspects and the impact of ACEs. This integrative approach is designed to illuminate the complex relationships between psychological well-being, somatic symptoms, and early life stressors across different life stages.