Current Research

Understanding how social factors like where you live, work, play, what resources you have access to in life, and how life experiences (like trauma) impact a person’s mental health.

When a person first experiences a health concern, the first thing we do is research information on the internet. Early education plays an important role in reducing symptoms and giving people power through knowledge about how to manage their mental health problems. Unfortunately, there is not enough research about what kinds of information are needed and most useful for people - especially online information. Our work explores how giving validation, information, and advice about questions from natural language analysis helps us better understand what is going on for people during these earliest periods, and how to help them.

There also is not enough research to understand what happens when a person first wonders if they have a mental health problem (and takes a mental health test) and how to make sure they can get access to the treatment options available to them. Our research identifies how best to engage individuals during this time to improve long-term outcomes and connect people to care when it’s most critical.

Not everyone can afford a therapist or lives in a community where mental health treatment is available. Our work is focused on creating and researching how early education and online digital single-session interventions (micro-interventions learned in roughly 5 minutes) can increase the knowledge and skills a person needs to prevent worsening symptoms while someone may not be in treatment. Our work is created for users who come to our site when they first realize they might have a mental health problem (typically puberty to early adulthood).

With funding from Elevance Health, MHA is evaluating data from individuals who come to MHA Screening to take an addiction screen and seek services. Findings suggest that users are young, experiencing significant addiction issues, and more likely than the general population to want treatment support. These findings will help us build and research meaningful resources (education, DIY tools, and a digital peer bridger pilot).

With Shanice Johnson, Ph.D., MPH, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Health Equity, this study combines depression data from MHA Screening with state and county-level Community Resilience Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau to explore links between community socioeconomic conditions and mental health needs and help clarify the specific types of investments that are needed for generally improving community mental health and COVID-19 recovery.

Researchers Carol Vidal, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H. and Hyun-Jin Jun, Ph.D., MSW have partnered with MHA to use data from MHA Screening to better understand the associations between different aspects related to age, race, household income, and perceived causes of mental health problems and measures of depression, anxiety, eating disorder problems, and substance use among youth during the pandemic.

Women transitioning into menopause are at a high risk of developing psychosis symptoms. MHA and the Powers lab at Yale University hope to identify and recruit women who are experiencing menopause-associated psychotic experiences to determine risk factors for psychosis in aging women to inform future interventions to help decrease the risk of severe psychosis symptoms.

With funding from Elevance Health, MHA is creating and researching enhanced psychoeducation materials in addiction. Our addiction education materials are created following a rigorous data-driven and person-centered approach that includes:

• Using natural language data to identify what kind of information people want and need.
• Working with peers from 6 MHA affiliates in key states (Georgia, California, New York (2), Virginia, Indiana) for input about what validation, information, and advice a person needs to solve their questions.
• Applying a writing and review process that ensures our content is grounded in lived experience and accessible (tone, honesty, and real-world support that resonates with readers).
• Training and working with peers and individuals with lived experience to write and edit content.

Early outcomes of this work show that among readers of our addiction articles: 89% report that the articles were helpful, 85% report that the articles increased their knowledge and understanding of mental health and addiction, and 81% report that the articles helped them feel more confident in managing their mental health and addiction.

In partnership with the University of Washington, our teams are evaluating user behavior on digital mental health platforms (including MHA Screening and in Talkspace) to describe the characteristics of optimal engagement with digital mental health treatment and identify effective, personalized methods to enhance motivation to engage in digital mental health treatment in order to improve mental health outcomes.

MHA is collaborating with Meghan Romanelli, Ph.D. and the University of Washington in efforts to address unmet mental health needs among sexual and gender minority populations, MHA is assisting in helping to analyze SGM user behavior, co-design innovative engagement strategies, and recruit SGM users to micro randomized trials to test engagement strategies.

This collaboration with Northwestern University seeks to develop an NSSI screener to help youth understand the amount of risk they have based on their current self-injury behaviors & create a resource to help youth with thoughts of self-harm, but not necessarily suicide. View information about the study.

In collaboration with the Meyerhoff Lab at Northwestern University, The Safety Planning Intervention (SPI) is a 7-step evidence-based process that facilitates suicide-related coping and can be tailored to address factors that increase suicide risk. This study will design and optimize a digital safety planning tool and conduct feasibility trials with individuals recruited from the MHA network.

With funding from Elevance Health, MHA is working with university partners at the University of California Irvine, to create and test a suite of digital interventions for individuals with addiction. We are also working with the University of Washington to create and pilot and digital peer bridger program. When a person comes to take an addiction test, they will be offered access to speak with a peer support specialist who can help navigate early recovery concerns. Unlike other warmlines or crisis supports, our peers will stay with individuals who are connected to act as a long-term text-based support person so that when a person is ready to get connected to care, our peers can help them do so.

With the University of Washington, MHA is exploring how digital tools and artificial intelligence can help people recognize thinking traps and practice reframing negative thoughts into ones that are more positive, realistic, or helpful. See our tool. 

Small Steps SMS is a text messaging-based program designed to support people in learning and applying skills for managing mental health concerns. The design process involved working closely with people who are dealing with depression and anxiety to understand the challenges they are facing, the skills they are interested in learning, how they use their phones, and their ideas for how text messaging can help them take care of their mental health.

The NORTH project is a multi-year initiative supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted by researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle. The goal of the NORTH project is to develop an app that supports young adults with mental health symptoms indicating risk for psychosis. This app is designed to provide immediate mental health support and information to make it easier to connect to in-person mental health services.