In response to the Program Announcement PA-09-040: Mentored Research Scientist Development Award, the revised K01 proposal seeks to advance my academic and professional training experience to allow me to become an independent researcher, particularly as an interventionist within an academic setting. I plan a career focus on developing and testing innovative behavioral interventions that incorporate public health chronic disease principles applied to substance-using youth (especially meth users). The proposed training agenda and research plan includes intervention development, clinical trials research, and longitudinal analytic methodologies. These activities are designed to accomplish 4 educational goals: 1) to obtain expertise in intervention development for substance-using youth using formative methodologies and chronic illness principles;2) to develop expertise in independently designing and implementing behavioral-based clinical trials in applied settings;3) to build skills in the application of longitudinal methods for testing the effectiveness of interventions on youth recovery outcomes over time;and 4) to enhance capacity in applying research findings for the development of presentations and publications and the preparation of grant applications for continued scientific inquiry. With further development and refinement of such research skills, I will be prepared to establish a solid foundation for a productive independent research career at UCLA. Staged didactic activities for enhancing my career development will occur throughout the 5-year award period, including concentrated one-on-one training with mentors, as well as attendance at seminars, workshops, and professional meetings. These extensive training activities will complement the proposed research goals, consisting of two research studies. Study 1 is a formative investigation of meth-using youth in outpatient treatment and their providers, to assess the applicability and inform the development of a mobile-based continuing-care intervention focused on public health principles of disease self-management. Study 2 is a randomized clinical trial pilot to examine the feasibility and test the effectiveness of a mobile-based continuing-care intervention on recovery outcomes among meth-using youth transitioning out of outpatient treatment. Results from the two studies will contribute to manuscripts, presentations, and a stage-1 R01 proposal to further develop and investigate the impact of mobile-based continuing-care interventions among substance-dependent youth from other treatment settings (residential).
The revised K01 application, entitled Mobile Continuing Care Approach for Youth proposes insightful and novel contributions to the field of adolescent substance abuse research, practice, and policy. Goals are to investigate new questions related to continuing care among youth populations through the use of technology- based intervention methods (mobile texting) guided by a public health disease management model. In addition, because there are unanswered questions regarding the course of methamphetamine dependence among youth this line of research is important to the treatment community as findings can potentially identify effective continuing care interventions for methamphetamine-using youth transitioning out of outpatient treatment. Such continuing care services will help sustain treatment gains and promote successful recovery outcomes for participating youth. Given that this type of intervention is new to both researchers and practitioners, this research provides an opportunity to gather, analyze, and interpret data, which results can add a new dimension of understanding to the youth literature.
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