Projects & Initiatives

Making the Unseen Seen Trial of Depression (MUST-D): Scrutinizing Social Determinants of Depression to Advance Precision Medicine and Equitable Care

• PI: Suzi Hong, PhD; Co-Is: Emily Troyer, MD & Job Godino, PhD 
• A multi-disciplinary collaboration across public health, psychiatry, and dissemination and implementation science at UCSD, as well as Family Health Centers of San Diego (FHCSD), the Laura Rodriguez Research Institute (LRRI), NeuroUX, and the Global Action Research Center.
• Supported by the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine (CIAPM).
• MUST-D aims to develop a contextually appropriate digital health platform to identify time-varying social drivers of depression-related outcomes, and to engage diverse community partners in developing an implementation plan for social determinants of health (SDoH)-informed clinical care for depression in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) setting.  

Teacher’s Perspectives of Student Mental Health Needs 

• PI: Hilary Gould, PhD
• Community Partners: San Diego County public schools recruited via UCSD Junior Psych Academy (JPA).
• This mixed-methods study will generate insights into teachers’ and paraprofessionals’ perspectives on supporting students’ mental health, helping inform future research, policy discussions, and professional development efforts. 

Care before Crisis: Expanding Mental Health Care Access for Hispanic/Latino Patients at El Centro Regional Medical Center 

• PI: Emily Treichler, PhD; Co-Is: Joseph Hayek, MD & Raul Lizarraga Jr., MS
• In collaboration with El Centro Regional Medical Center (ECRMC) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) San Diego and Imperial Counties. 
• Supported by the UCSD Learning Health Systems Science (LHSS) Center.
• This is a community engaged mixed method analysis, to understand the needs of ECRMC emergency department patients with mental health or substance use disorders. 

Closing the Gap: Increasing Patient Engagement in Care After Discharge from Inpatient Psychiatry 

• PI: Emily Treichler, PhD; Co-Is: Jessica Thackaberry, MD, & Steve Koh, MD, MPH, MBA 
• In collaboration with UC San Diego Health. 
• Supported by the UCSD Learning Health Systems Science (LHSS) Center.
• This is a retrospective review of preventative health screenings during acute psychiatric hospitalizations at UCSD to understand current screening levels and potential strategies to increase screening if needed and to connect patients with cardiometabolic disease or at high risk of cardiometabolic disease with effective prevention and intervention care post-discharge.  

Leveraging UCSD EPIC Data for Assessment and Treatment of Social Determinants of Health in Patients with Psychiatric Emergencies  

• Co-PIs: Emily Troyer, MD, Hilary Gould, PhD, & Jordan Kohn, PhD 
• In collaboration with UC San Diego Health.
• Supported by the UC San Diego Academy of Clinician Scholars (AoCS).
• This is a retrospective analysis of the association between unmet health-related social needs and risk of future acute care utilization following hospital admission or emergency visits among patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. 

Context-Aware Mobile Intervention for Social Recovery in Serious Mental Illness

• PI: Eric Granholm, PhD
• In collaboration with UC San Diego Health and and County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services.
• Supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant R33MH126094.
• This is a clinical trial to examine the effects of a new technology-supported blended intervention that combines brief, in person cognitive behavioral therapy sessions with a context-triggered mobile smartphone intervention to improve social functioning and recovery in people living with serious mental illness.

Optimizing Cognitive Behavioral Social Skills Training with Executive Function Training for Older Adults with Schizophrenia 

• PI: Eric Granholm, PhD
• In collaboration with UC San Diego Health and and County of San Diego Behavioral Health Services.
• Supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant R61MH132859.
• This is a clinical trial to examine the effects of a group therapy intervention that combines cognitive remediation (executive function training) and cognitive behavioral social skills training (CBSST) to improve community functioning and recovery in older adults living with schizophrenia.

“Chill Packs”: Evaluating Self-Administered Olanzapine as a Psychiatric Harm Reduction Intervention to Prevent Methamphetamine Induced Psychosis 

• PI: Joseph Friedman, MD, PhD, MPH; Co-Is: Carla Marienfeld, MD, Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, Justin Selzter, MD, Casey Tiefenthaler, PharmD, & Allison Lee, PharmD 
• In collaboration with UC San Diego Health.
• Many individuals who use methamphetamine experience psychiatric side effects, including anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations and delusions (referred to as methamphetamine-induced psychosis). This pilot study at UCSD assesses providing patients who use methamphetamine with a 'chill pack' – containing a short course of low-dose olanzapine, an atypical antipsychotic – that they can self-administer in the outpatient setting to attenuate methamphetamine-induced psychosis and prevent its progression. Similar to the use of community-distributed naloxone to treat opioid overdoses, 'chill packs' are being studied as a harm-reduction method to provide patients with tools to mitigate acute psychiatric harms and avert related hospitalizations. Read more about 'chill packs' here. 

Integrating Sleep and Light Intervention (SALI) Depression Treatment into Community Practice 

• PI: David Sommerfeld, PhD; Co-I: Barbara Parry, MD
• In collaboration with the Accessible Depression and Anxiety Peripartum Treatment (ADAPT) Program operated by the Vista Hill Foundation.
• For many people, effective depression treatments are often unavailable, inaccessible, and/or have undesirable side effects. The Sleep and Light Intervention (SALI), developed and tested by Dr. Barbara Parry, UCSD, has shown promising results as a nonpharmacological, rapid-acting (i.e., symptom improvement often within a week or less), well-tolerated and low-cost depression treatment approach when administered by research personnel. Our study seeks to: 1) move SALI down the research-to-practice “pipeline” by testing whether we can successfully integrate SALI into a community-based depression treatment program for women experiencing peripartum depression and 2) refine the implementation strategies needed to support future expansion into additional service settings based on patient and provider feedback about SALI feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness.