Alabama Flashcards
**How did you get interested in the field of psychology/
Why do I want to be in this Lab
(Summarized)?
Before College:
A child with autism/epilepsy who had significant mental and physical health challenges. I saw firsthand how interconnected these two factors were to one another.
I often spent weeks at the hospital supporting my client.
Her family was from a very low SES. And felt they had a significant lack of resources.
I became very passionate about finding methods to help improve well-being for my client and passionate about disseminating resources to clinical populations, that truly benefit from such work, like my client.
Throughout college:
I sought out numerous clinical opportunities to work with individuals from underserved communities (Farm home UCEDD, family to family). And had several opportunities to share resources with these clinical communities that benefited.
Research Undergraduate experience:
ACE: Studied the impact adverse childhood experiences have on college students
-Analyzed data using SPSS by conducting a reliability analysis and bivariate correlation
-Students with higher ACEs have a negative correlation to college satisfaction and quality of life
-Students with higher ACEs have a positive correlation to anxiety and depression.
From this study, I realized research was something I’m very passionate about and wanted to pursue in graduate school.
For my post bacc, I sought out intervention research work, with the hope of improving well-being for various clinical populations,
It got me very interested in examining intervention-based research work, and looking at interventions that may support individuals who have experienced significant adversities.
I joined SHAID lab as a research coordinator and developed excellent project management skills. I Had the opportunity to work on several projects but primarily worked on the SITY,
investigate sleep health before, during, and after the initiation of gender-affirming hormone therapy. This experience ignited my passion for working with underserved and marginalized communities that are often overlooked in research.
However, I really wanted to focus more on the intervention aspect so Dr. Dietch connected me with Dr. Casement at OSL.
At OSL- I helped launch 2 NIH-funded projects, that will be going on for the next 5 years. Now my time is primarily spent running participants through all of our various procedures.
We have two studies:
examined if implementing an earlier bedtime and increasing sleep duration could lead to the reduction of anhedonia and depression symptoms in adolescents or reduce risky alcohol use in young adults.
In graduate school I would like to examine interventions that lead to sleep improvement or sleep based interventions. I’m particularly intrested in disseminating these resources to individuals who may have disproportionate access to care: low SES, rural, individuals of color. I believe sleep is very much interconnected with mental and physical well being, and I’m very passionate about finding methods to reduce overall stress and improve quality of life.
My mentors often ask me to reflect on your “why” for conducting research. Especially when you get into the thick/weeds of a challenging project.
I am very enthusiastic about your lab because it directly aligns with my research interests and my “why”.
________
I want to develop, disseminate, and improve the accessibility of sleep interventions to underserved and vulnerable communities.
What’s a recent paper you read (relevant to lab) that you found interesting?
- Talk about Chorpita paper.
- Social-ecological considerations for the sleep health of rural mothers.
Talks about societal level factors, social level factors, individual level factors influencing sleep health/ access in rural mothers, often low SES.
Future sleep health programs would benefit from using existing social support networks to disseminate sleep health information, integrating behavioral health services into clinical care frameworks, and tailoring culturally-appropriate Telehealth/mHealth programs to enhance the sleep health of rural mothers.
Research Idea #1
One recent paper I read discusses possible future directions for youth and family treatment and discusses this idea of completing the bridge between science and service.
The bridge is built to allow the transportation of evidence-based treatments
into practice (or service) for the clinical populations that would benefit from such work.
However, currently, this bridge is full of potholes, and debris, and there’s confusing road lines, so overall, there is several barriers making it challenging to get across the bridge from one side to the other.
I think there are a few challenges of getting across that bridge. (One in particular: access).
Problem: Access → National survey findings suggest that only one-third of youths with mental health needs access services
Other traditionally underserved groups, including those who have immigrated to the U.S. those with incomes below the poverty line, and those living in rural regions, have well-documented service use disparities.
When looking at sleep psychology literature, this same group may have disproportionate access to sleep health care and/or significant challenges with sleep itself.
For instance, African American adults reported shorter sleep durations, and experienced poor sleep quality compared to White adults.
individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups may have higher rates of sleep disorders like insomnia.
Additionally, for rural ethnic and racial minority populations,)access to quality healthcare may be worse due to discrimination in interactions with healthcare institutions.
When thinking about this bridge, How do we add in some structure? Improve access to care particularly for these groups who have such significant barriers?
I would like to examine how family dynamics from low socioeconomic status households impact sleep quality and sleep duration, onset sleep latency with the ultimate goal of determining interventions that can be easily disseminated to individuals facing disproportionate services.
Socioeconomic-related stressors can be mitigated by the social support network. Indeed, social support is related to better sleep and psychological health among mothers of diverse socio-demographic backgrounds
Therefore, I propose:
Step One:
I would like to first examine
good vs poor reported sleep quality in low SES families. Ideally also having a good sample of rural/ individuals of color as well)
Baseline:
Qualitative interview:
Inquire information about bedtime as a whole for the family.
Also identify individuals each family member interacts with for the social interaction interviews.
Sleep Measurements:
Wear actiwatch
Measure a week of at home sleep diaries: including reported sleep quality
Look at onset sleep latency
Look at sleep durations
Family Dynamic Measurements:
Measure any reported ACEs
Measure family dynamics, something like the daily social interactions survey via phone call.
Intervention:
Something similar to Brief Behavioral Treatment for Insomnia (BBTI) (something that can be administrable by non-psychologist) BUT instead focused on improving family dynamics. So something based in CBT family therapy.
Group 1: “baseline” group will come in person for a something like CBT family therapy
Group 2: telehealth version
Does sleep quality and onset sleep latency improve when we try to improve family dynamics in various settings?
Study 2:
and long/early sleepers vs short/late sleepers in low SES families
in person therapy
telehealth MI
vs modular design
Group 3: modular design, breaking down concepts from CBT family therapy.
(engagement, talk about what modular design is).
-do cbti interventio to help improve sleep duration??
Why are you interested in working with me?
Your research interests align very well with mine. My drive aligns with your lab.
What appeals to you about this program?
Health Psychology component: the opportunity to pursue coursework and practical training experiences that will prepare me for both academic/medical settings.
Opportunity to be more involved with social psychology as well! (I’m interested in promoting diversity in my work).
Sleep-based research interest aligns with Dr. Gunn and the opportunities for the Sleep Clinic Practicum.
