mHealth Intervention via Mentors: Preventing Substance Use, Sexual Risk and Violence among Inner City Youth through Technology-Enhanced Mentoring

项目概要 K01 提案“通过导师进行移动健康干预：预防药物使用、性风险和暴力” 通过技术增强的指导，在巴尔的摩内城青年中进行培训”，涉及两个研究领域 与青少年健康相关的值得进一步关注的问题，特别是它们如何交叉以改善 公共卫生：青年指导和移动医疗（mHealth）预防干预措施。青少年正在成长 在巴尔的摩等低收入城市地区，从事不健康行为的风险特别高，例如 物质使用、性风险和参与暴力。对于缺乏社会保护资源的青少年 例如父母、细心的老师或社区网络，导师可以在帮助 减轻压力，预防消极的健康行为，并树立积极的健康行为榜样。然而，鲜为人知 关于学员健康行为改变发生的途径，特别是预防物质 使用，匹配的导师如何有效地传达健康促进信息，或者移动医疗如何 可以利用技术来增强现有的指导模式。利用获得的知识和培训 通过该奖项在青少年物质使用、移动健康干预以及二元和双元分析等领域 “大”社交媒体和智能手机数据，拟议研究的目标是制定预防干预措施 以智能手机应用程序 (app) 的形式以及使用该应用程序的培训材料，以增强 巴尔的摩市区高度脆弱的非裔美国男性青少年现有的辅导模式。的 在此奖项下获得的培训、专业发展和试点数据将使我能够提出 R01 进行自然研究或随机对照试验来测量物质减少的效果大小 受指导的青春期男性的使用和相关健康风险行为。 K 奖的支持和 相关的职业发展经验将使我成为一名专注于新领域的独立调查员 专业领域——利用移动医疗预防美国城市青少年的药物滥用——并学习技能 成功申请 NIH 研究经费所需的。我的长期职业目标是回答以下问题 研究问题： 1) 指导如何帮助改善高危青少年的健康状况并减少 成年后的健康差异？ 2）移动医疗如何用于预防干预？ 人口？充分认识如何建立一个系统的、与青少年领域交叉的研究计划 指导和有效的移动医疗干预具有巨大的潜力，可以引导我走向创新和 在新领域开展富有成效的独立研究生涯。我在这笔培训补助金下的中期职业目标 将重点关注巴尔的摩市非裔美国青少年男性的本地工作，了解如何 技术增强的指导可以作为城市男性青少年的普遍预防工具，建立 分析二元数据以及社交媒体和智能手机应用程序生成的数据的能力，并 与药物滥用预防、青年指导和移动医疗领域的领先研究人员开展合作 研究。

PROJECT SUMMARY This K01 proposal, “mHealth Intervention via Mentors: Preventing Substance Use, Sexual Risk, and Violence among Inner City Baltimore Youth through Technology-Enhanced Mentoring,” addresses two fields of study relevant to adolescent health that deserve further attention, particularly in how they can intersect to improve public health: youth mentoring and mobile health (mHealth) prevention interventions. Adolescents growing up in low-income urban areas such as Baltimore are at particularly high risk for unhealthy practices such as substance use, sexual risk, and engagement in violence. For adolescents who lack socially protective resources such as parents, attentive teachers, or community networks, mentors can play a significant role in helping to reduce stress, prevent negative health behaviors, and model positive health behaviors. However, little is known about the pathways by which mentee health behavior change occurs, especially for the prevention of substance use, how matched mentors can effectively communicate health promotion messages, or how mHealth technology might be leveraged to enhance existing mentoring models. Utilizing knowledge and training gained through this award in the areas of adolescent substance use, mHealth interventions, and analysis of dyadic and “big” social media and smartphone data, the goal of the proposed study is to develop a prevention intervention in the form of a smartphone application (app), as well as training materials for using the app, to enhance existing mentoring models for highly vulnerable African American male adolescents in urban Baltimore. The training, professional development, and pilot data gained under this award will allow me to propose an R01 to conduct a naturalistic study or randomized controlled trial to measure effect sizes in the reduction of substance use and related health risk behaviors among mentored adolescent males. Support under a K award and the linked career development experiences will allow me to become an independent investigator focused on a new area of expertise—substance use prevention with urban American youth using mHealth—and to learn the skills required for successfully pursing NIH research funding. My long-term career goal is to answer the following research questions: 1) How can mentoring help improve health outcomes for at-risk adolescents and reduce health disparities in adulthood? and 2) How can mHealth be used in prevention intervention with this population? Fully understanding how to set up a systematic research program that intersects the fields of youth mentoring and effective mHealth intervention has great potential to lead me towards an innovative and productive independent research career in a new area. My intermediate career goals under this training grant are to focus work locally with African American adolescent males in Baltimore City, understand how technology-enhanced mentoring can serve as a universal prevention tool for urban male adolescents, build capacity to analyze dyadic data and data produced by social media and smartphone applications, and to develop collaborations with leading investigators in substance use prevention, youth mentoring, and mHealth research.