Our projects can be divided to four areas of focus, public mental health and substance abuse research, health promotion and disease prevention across the life course, violence prevention and trauma studies, and refugee, immigrant, and global health. Below you can see our current and past projects and sort them by area of interest.
Projects
Projects
Areas of Focus
Choose an area of focus
Choose an area of focus
Choose an area of focus
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Human Services and State Government Alignment Project
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This initiative seeks to understand the mechanisms by which trauma, occurring over the life course, but especially in childhood, “gets under the skin” of patients and shapes how they think, feel, and behave, often for the remainder of their lives. Although much is known about the effects of trauma, little is known about the biological mechanisms and pathways it impacts. Unfortunately, the field is stalled, with limited treatment options and limited efficacy, leaving many people with residual symptoms and impairments.
The Biology of Trauma and Resilience Initiative
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
The innovative initiative of the ACE Resource Network to develop a place-based effort to raise awareness, prevent, and intervene on the associations among ACE (adverse childhood experiences) and negative health and social outcomes, in Sacramento, CA will be a first of its kind effort.
Evaluating the ACE Resource Network: Sacramento Intiative
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
Preventing Depression of Chinese American Adolescents through Mobile Health Application
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This is an online professional development system designed to help early learning professionals meet regulations and recommendations for physical activity with preschool children. It aims to help early learning professionals gain understanding, ideas, and confidence regarding the benefits of physically active play.
We Play
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
Evaluation of the school-based Healthy Relationships Project for primary prevention of child sexual abuse among children pre-K through 5th grade
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
Salus Populi: Educating the Judiciary about the Social Determinants of Health
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
The aim of this project is to give hard to reach young urban women who may be at risk for HIV, access to health promotion videos on their own cell phones.
Reducing Urban Women’s HIV Risk: Soap Opera Videos on Video Capable Cellphones
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
Dr. Alisa Lincoln and her team at Northeastern University will work closely with the Department of Mental Health and Massachusetts stakeholders to develop and write the Massachusetts Strategic Plan for identifying and intervening early with people at risk for or experiencing psychosis (FEP) and their families with attention to the diversity of communities residing in Massachusetts
Massachusetts Strategic Plan for Prevention, Early Detection and Intervention with Psychosis
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
Evaluation of the National Suicide Prevention Program Grant
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
The Social Construction of Legal Exclusion in Indian Slums
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Refugee, Immigrant, and Global Health
Evaluation of the Early Childhood Mental Health Family Independence, Resilience, Support, and Treatment (ECMH FIRST) Project
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
Vicarious Trauma Resource Initiative
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
Evaluation of the readiness and feasibility of conducting a large-scale evaluation of Start Strong Boston, a highly regarded community-based intervention that teaches middle school-aged youth about healthy relationships and avoiding dating violence.
Start Strong Boston: Evaluating Readiness and Feasibility of a Promising Afterschool Teen Dating Violence Intervention Using a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Framework
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
Evaluation of the Massachusetts Early Comprehensive Childhood Systems (MECCS) Impact Project (MECCS)
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
This project seeks to identify how communities’ efforts to address questions regarding the role and place of sanctuary affects their resilience, and considers ways that cities might become more resilient as they respond to various forms of oppression, human rights violations, and other unjust exercises of power worldwide.
Sanctuary Cities
- Refugee, Immigrant, and Global Health
This study is designed to (a) identify subgroups of gun owners who share similar attributes and similar suicide risk profiles and then (b) conduct qualitative research with the subgroups to explore barriers and facilitators to the development of targeted firearm suicide prevention programs that can be adopted by each subgroup.
Developing Firearm Suicide Prevention Programs Tailored to Gun Owner Population Subgroups
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
This project builds collaborative relationships with community-based organizations so they are better able to offer proven, innovative HIV prevention and support programs that assist girls, women, and their families.
GENERATIONS: Strengthening Women and Families Affected by HIV/AIDS
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
The aim of this project is to give hard to reach young urban women who may be at risk for HIV, access to health promotion videos on their own cell phones.
Reducing Urban Women’s HIV Risk: Soap Opera Videos on Video Capable Cellphones
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
This project aims to provide opportunities for young artists to discuss health issues of importance to them and their community, as well as a space for creating art with guidance and supplies.
Healthy Visions
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
This is an evaluation of comprehensive trauma-informed, culturally-tailored substance abuse, behavioral health, and primary care services to low-income adult women in Boston who are at high risk of or living with HIV/AIDS, with a particular focus on recruiting and serving women of color.
Boston Consortium Model Enhancement: Integrated Wellness Model for Women of Color (BCME)
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
This study aims to assess the feasibility, acceptability, potential benefits, and outcome trends of an intervention designed to promote the use of long-acting contraceptives among women in treatment for drug addiction.
Women’s Health Study: Integrated Sexual Health and HIV Prevention Intervention
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This is an evaluation of peer-led services focused on enhancing substance use treatment and recovery outcomes for Latino and African American men and women with a history of co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders in Boston.
Providing Access to Addictions Treatment, Hope, and Support (PAATHS)
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This study randomly assigns individuals to receive different neighborhood contexts, to support strong causal inferences of how neighborhoods shape mental health.
Effects of Housing Policy Experiment on Youth Behavioral Problems
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This is a social marketing campaign that aims to encourage students to think about how they make decisions about drinking and to promote discussion about student life and alcohol and drug use among students.
Social Marketing Campaign and Posters
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This is an Intensive Outpatient Treatment (IOT) program that aims to reduce substance abuse and to reduce HIV infection and other diseases among African American and Latina women.
Moving on to Recovery and Empowerment (MORE)
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This program implements and evaluates a model of integrated substance abuse and mental health treatment for men of color. It aims to support participants’ recovery by increasing access to high-quality, community-based, culturally sensitive outpatient substance abuse treatment services.
Boston Consortium for Men in Recovery
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
As a part of the Safe and Sound Return initiative, this training program gives women the opportunity to develop skills that they can later use in professional and educational settings. It also aims to empower women to overcome obstacles and improve their self-image.
Entrepreneurship Training Institute
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This program expands and enhances substance abuse treatment and reentry services for women returning to their communities after being incarcerated.
Safe and Sound Return
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This project responds to an identified need to expand residential substance abuse treatment services for pregnant and postpartum Latina women in Boston.
Post-partum Women and Infants Study (PPWI)
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
The goal of this study is to increase our understanding of the prevalence of limited literacy among people using public, urban mental health outpatient services and to examine mechanisms that inform our understanding of these relationships.
The Literacy Study: The Meaning and Impact of Limited Literacy in the Lives of People Living with Serious Mental Illness
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This study aims to determine construction worker perspectives on their mental health and wellbeing, and how work contributes to mental health and the wellbeing of the workers.
Improving Mental Health and Wellbeing in Construction Workers: Understanding the Role of Work and the Conditions of Work
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This investigation will collect pilot data and test different methods of recruitment, retainment, and assessment to prepare for research proposals to fund a longitudinal cohort study of the role of justice in the healing of sexual assault survivors.
Pathways to Healing: A Mixed Methods Investigation of the Role of Justice in Healing of Mental, Physical, and Social Wounds of Sexual Assault Survivors
- Violence Prevention and Trauma Studies
This is a pilot study to develop and implement an adapted Adult Basic Education course in a public urban outpatient mental health clinic for those with limited literacy and living with serious mental illness.
Literacy Education for Improving Engagement in Treatment and Community Inclusion for People with Serious Mental Illness
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
The purpose of this evaluation study is to determine the effectiveness of the SOC project on early child care service systems’ functioning, children’s mental, behavioral, and developmental health outcomes, and the project’s impact on collaboration across the system of care.
Evaluation of the Massachusetts Multi-City Young Children’s Mental Health System of Care (SOC) Project
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This project promotes the emotional, social, and behavioral health of young children by enhancing early childhood service systems.
Project LAUNCH
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This study aims to adapt and modify Adult Basic Education and the development of evidence-based methods to improve the reading skills of people with mental illness, which may have a broad public health impact.
Literacy Intervention Development Team
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
This program aims to prevent childhood obesity by supporting health promoting environments where young children live, learn, and play.
Healthy Kids Healthy Futures
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
This research aims to uncover whether and how specific drug and health-related laws and placement characteristics relate to a variety of overdose related outcomes among people who inject drugs, overall and by race/ethnicity, gender, age, and HIV status.
Developing the Evidence Base for Overdose Policies: A Multilevel Analysis of NHBS
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
The goal of this project is to expand knowledge of the relationships among experiences of discrimination and health outcomes for young Somali adults and ultimately mitigate disparities in mental health and health outcomes experienced by immigrant young adults.
Exploring Pathways Among Discrimination and Health Among Somali Young Adults
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research
- Refugee, Immigrant, and Global Health
This study aims to generate evidence on how health policies impact substance use and drug and alcohol treatment among women with and at risk of HIV in the United States, and explain the pathways through which these policies shape HIV viral suppression among women with HIV.
Quantifying Health Policy Impacts on Substance Use and Treatment among Women with and at Risk for HIV
- Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Across the Life Course
- Public Mental Health and Substance Misuse Research