Past Events

Childhood onset psychiatric disorders increase the risk for developing a later substance use disorder (SUD). Systematic screening for substance use among children and adolescents with a psychiatric disorder is crucial, and pharmacological treatment for psychiatric disorders may mitigate the development of a SUD. Prevention is important since SUDs are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Once a SUD has developed in a youth with a psychiatric disorder both disorders need to be considered when developing a treatment plan. For example, psychiatric risk factors associated with drug overdose will be reviewed. Lastly, medication treatment for youth with co-occurring psychiatric and SUDs, including bipolar disorder will also be discussed.

Although all humans experience stress, the sources of stress and the effects it has can be very different for individuals. Chronic stressors tend to be continuous and generally are experienced as a result of group membership. These include experiences such as discrimination, racial slights, and police profiling.

To address the lag between effectiveness and implementation research studies and the implementation of evidence-based practices into routine care, hybrid effectiveness-implementation studies promote examination of both effectiveness and implementation outcomes within a single study. There are three types of hybrid approaches (type 1, 2, and 3) and they vary based on their primary focus and the amount of emphasis on effectiveness versus implementation outcomes. This presentation introduces these approaches and provides and in-depth example of a type 2 study evaluating implementation of a suicide prevention intervention (Caring Contacts). This study will be used to highlight how one might use hybrid approaches to evaluate implementation of mental health and suicide prevention in other populations (e.g., adolescents, young adults).

Sleep amount, depth, intensity, integrity, and alignment are important contributors to optimal health that, when disrupted, can escalate vulnerability to behavioral, attention and mood problems in youth. Seminal studies demonstrated that maturational processes of synaptic pruning and myelination in a posterior-to-anterior gradient are signaled by the sleeping brain and its circadian regulation. Emerging literature supports that abnormal developmental trajectories of sleep biomarkers, phenotypes and disorders are associated with psychopathology as well as other adverse health outcomes. Better understanding how altered brain maturation and sleep disruption at different life stages may lead to the perpetuation or development of psychopathology is essential if we want to derive personalized treatments early in the life cycle that target daytime behaviors and nighttime sleep in a multidimensional manner.

As the use of telepsychiatry in mental health via video/phone visits soars, it is important to also consider how asynchronous telepsychiatry tools like smartphone apps can also advance care. This talk will focus on the evolving field of smartphone digital phenotyping and consider the potential of real-time data capture via smartphones, methods necessary to analyze such data, and practical clinical applications of these tools. Looking at the evolving smartphone mental health ecosystem, the talk will also cover the topic of app evaluation and supporting research for making informed choices related to smartphone apps for use in research or patient care.