Ongoing Studies

Technology-Enabled Prevention Service for At-Risk Youth.

The Youth Digital Mental Health Lab has partnered with teens and library workers from the Oak Park Public Library, which serves west Chicago and west suburbs of Chicago, to iteratively co-design a digital mental health tool to help youth effectively manage their anxiety. Through collaborations with the Lab for Scalable Mental Health at Northwestern University and from gathering mixed-methods feedback from teens, library workers, and mental health clinicians, our research team has been working on adapting an evidence-based intervention to be piloted 2024-2025. Next steps will be expanding this program to other teen service programs at public libraries throughout the United States.

Recently Completed Studies

Asynchronous Remote Research Investigating Adolescent Perspective on Mental Health During COVID-19 Pandemic.

Stress and anxiety in the COVID-19 pandemic are pervasive. For teens specifically, the pandemic has caused disruption and uncertainty in their education, interpersonal relationships, and family interactions. Anxiety disorders were already the most common disorder in adolescence before the pandemic, and it is likely the incidence and prevalence of anxiety disorders will increase dramatically. Thus, it is important to understand the experiences of our youth, especially those related to mental health, and how they have navigated their experiences in the midst of the pandemic. 

In this study, we used the asynchronous remote communities (ARC) method, which allows for broader recruitment and the construction of more diverse samples than are available for in-person activities, to remotely convene a group of 30 adolescent participants aged 13-17 years for 15 days to better understand how adolescents experience anxiety and stress, their responses to existing technological tools, and about how their technology use has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of this research is to develop the next generation of digital mental health (DMH) tools and services that are effective, implementable, and scalable that will treat and prevent anxiety in youth.

Investigating Changes in Online Resource Use and Suitability of Platforms for Remote Research During COVID-19 Pandemic.

We conducted a survey using a Qualtrics panel of adolescents and adults, designed to capture how people’s needs for online social and informational resources have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and further, what affordances are necessary for people to feel comfortable participating in research conducted online. This data will be used to design future studies using remote methodologies, including asynchronous remote communities, online focus groups, and remote participatory design.