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

通过导师进行移动健康干预：通过技术增强的指导预防内城青少年的药物使用、性风险和暴力

• 批准号: 9750658
• 负责人: Michelle R. Kaufman
• 金额: $ 17.92万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-15 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9750658
• 关键词: Address; Adolescent; Adult; African American; Alcohol consumption; Alcohol or Other Drugs use; American; Area; Attention; Award; Baltimore; Behavior; Big Data; Cellular Phone; Child; Cities; Collaborations; Communication; Community Networks; Coping Behavior; Crime; Data; Development; Drug usage; Early identification; Effectiveness; Enhancement Technology; Ensure; Environment; Face; Feeling; Female; Fostering; Frequencies; Funding; Goals; Grant; Health; Health Promotion; Health Technology; Health behavior; Health behavior change; Imprisonment; Interpersonal Violence; Interruption; Intervention; K-Series Research Career Programs; Knowledge; Lead; Learning Skill; Link; Low income; Male Adolescents; Measures; Mentors; Mentorship; Modeling; Outcome; Parents; Pathway interactions; Persons; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Play; Population; Poverty; Prevention; Preventive Intervention; Public Health; Qualitative Methods; Randomized Controlled Trials; Research; Research Personnel; Resources; Risk; Risk Behaviors; Role; Social support; Stress; Stress and Coping; Structure; Technology; Time; Training; Trauma; Trust; Underemployment; United States National Institutes of Health; Violence; Work; Youth; adolescent health; adolescent health outcomes; adolescent substance use; career; career development; catalyst; early onset substance use; experience; field study; health disparity; high risk; improved; inner city; innovation; interest; mHealth; male; meetings; peer; perpetrators; prevent; programs; racism; reduced substance use; sexual debut; sexual risk behavior; smartphone Application; social; social media; stress management; substance use prevention; success; teacher; tool; universal prevention; urban area

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.

项目总结