An Intervention for Combating Negative Mental Health Attitudes, Improving Mental Health Literacy, Supporting Discussions of Mental Health Needs and Access to Mental Health care for Latino Adolescents

ABSTRACT Latino adolescents comprise the ethnic-racial group with the highest rates of depressive symptoms, which, if left untreated, can have life-long deleterious impacts to their health. These youth also face additional obstacles for care due to individual and cultural stigma about mental health, difficulty discussing their mental health needs with caregivers or other adults, as well as low mental health literacy and low access to mental health treatment. Research is necessary to develop appropriate interventions tailored to the specific needs of Latino adolescents, focusing on the sociocultural and health care factors that impact their mental health. This career development K01 award will address this gap in research while providing the candidate with the opportunity to fulfill the following goals: 1) develop broad expertise in intervention development, 2) gain skills in intervention testing, refinement, and evaluation, 3) enhance her knowledge of community-based participatory research (CBPR), and 4) acquire skills in translation of research with Latino populations. The proposed rigorous training and mentoring plan includes coursework and workshops on health communications, implementation science, the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials, and advanced statistical analysis at the University of Michigan’s top-ranked Schools of Social Work, Public Health, and Medicine. It also includes experiential learning through presenting at national conferences, manuscripts, and grant submissions, as well as mentoring from experts in mental health intervention development, Latino adolescents’ mental health, implementation science, CBPR methods, motivational interviewing, and community health workers. This training and mentoring will prepare the candidate for her long-term career goals of developing efficacious interventions to improve the mental health of Latino adolescents. These training goals are rooted in a CBPR framework through which the candidate aims to: 1) Explore facilitators and challenges to adolescents’ (a) discussion of mental health needs with caregivers or other adults and, (b) use of mental health services expressed by both youth and their caregivers; 2) Develop a motivational interviewing-based intervention for Latino adolescents aimed at (a) increasing youth discussions of their mental health needs with caregivers or other adults, (b) reducing stigma of mental health treatment, (c) increasing their mental health literacy, and (d) increasing mental health treatment engagement; 3) pilot and evaluate this intervention with 32 Latino adolescents to determine its feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and potential impact on key outcomes. Through these experiences and the guidance of her expert mentoring team, the candidate will gain the skills to support her long-term career goal of becoming an independent intervention researcher.