Research Profile

Novel Interventions in Children’s Healthcare (NICH) is a behavioral health program targeting health disparities in high-risk youth with diabetes who experience chronically high blood sugars and/or repeated, preventable diabetes hospital admissions. NICH may work by improving social risk factors (e.g., food, housing, and healthcare access problems) and reducing daily living problems for youth with diabetes and caregivers. However, no scientific studies have examined if NICH improves these concerns. This research project will assess whether NICH affects these important areas, and if improvements in social risk and daily life explain why NICH works to improve medical outcomes like glycemic variability and diabetes-related medical visit attendance. This project will contribute to understanding how the NICH intervention assists families in removing medical care access barriers and improving daily functioning which ultimately improves medical outcomes and quality of life for youth and families living with diabetes.

The overall findings of this project will allow us to provide further support of the positive influence of the NICH program and ultimately assist us with being able to more broadly disseminate and implement this program in areas where it does not currently exist. We are also hoping that by providing more support for NICH's treatment efficacy that insurance payors may be more willing to cover the intensive behavioral interventions essential to NICH. While this project may help some people who are struggling with the daily management demands of diabetes more immediately, it may not benefit every individual; however, the broad impact of the findings may contribute to our understanding of how to reduce negative social influencers of health and promote health equity within the diabetes community.

As a pediatric psychologist working at a major medical center, I constantly see the impacts that diabetes and adverse social stressors have on youth with diabetes and their families. There are many times when our interventions are simply not enough, particularly for youth exposed to traumatic life events or living in under-resourced communities. Being able to contribute to conducting research that will support more intensive behavioral services and that may relieve many of the common barriers that I see with my families is highly rewarding to me. This project will allow us to discover how a program like NICH makes its treatment impact. I have previously published on the naturalistic impacts of diabetes-related distress and anxiety on medical outcomes in the context of diabetes. This project will move my research into the intervention arena where I can begin to think more about how we can refine treatment practices and learn how to further support youth and families experiencing challenges in daily management of diabetes.

Many psychological and behavioral health interventions have been developed and well-researched to treat depression, anxiety, and other disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. There have also been interventions to target diabetes distress and modifications to existing behavioral health interventions have been made to be specific to the experiences of people living with diabetes. I see future diabetes research to be focused on building capacity to implement and disseminate these interventions. I also see a necessity in future diabetes research to include metrics that tap into the psychological and lived experiences of people with diabetes across all studies focused on preventing, treating, and curing diabetes. The information gained from these data will promote the effectiveness and delivery of any interventions developed from these studies.