Research Office News

Professor Lisa Wexler has received a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Grant for her project, Family Safety Net: Developing an Upstream Suicide Prevention Approach to Encourage Safe Firearm Storage in Rural and Remote Alaskan Homes. The study will support, encourage and assess safe firearm storage practices relevant to Alaska Native families. Alaska has suicide rates far above national averages, including a teen suicide rate among Alaska Natives 18 times higher than the rate for other American teens.

A new study from Parenting in Context Research Lab found parents are overwhelmed, kids are anxious and economic hardship is common during the pandemic. The pandemic presents parents with new challenges on how best to prepare and support their children for a different school experience. In the early days of the pandemic, nearly 80% of parents were educating their children at home.

Associate Professor Kathryn Maguire-Jack has received an R01 grant from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control to examine the preventive impacts of childcare subsidies and paid family leave policies on child maltreatment and intimate partner violence. She is a co-investigator of the 3-year $1.05 million project led by Prevent Child Abuse America. Maguire-Jack is working with researchers from the Prevent Child Abuse America and Casey Family Programs

Associate Professor David Córdova and co-authors received the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations. The award is presented for the best research article that makes substantial and significant contributions to family research and theory.

Natasha Johnson, PhD ‘20, has received a $5,000 Racial Injustice Award From the U-M Depression Center for her research on racism awareness among Black youths. Her research has the potential to provide empirical support for intervention programs aimed at combating racism by developing a psychometric tool that will evaluate resilient pathways for racially marginalized youth.

Assistant Professor Fernanda Lima Cross' new research finds that parents who are undocumented immigrants are more likely than documented parents to teach mistrust to their children and to be wary of interactions with law enforcement. "Ethnic-racial socialization is often used to prepare adolescents for life outside of the home and tends to be protective," says Cross.

Assistant Professor Lindsay Bornheimer has received a National Institute of Mental Health Clinical Trial Planning Grant (R34). This three-year grant will support her team in modifying and evaluating acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Suicide Prevention for psychosis (CBSPp) and will help increase the utility of CBSPp in community mental health work. CBSPp is a promising intervention developed and evaluated by Bornheimer’s collaborative team and is one of few suicide interventions available that is tailored for adults experiencing psychosis.

Associate Professor Terri Friedline discusses the drop in demand for small-dollar loans with Morning Consult.  Without additional government relief, she expects “things to get a lot worse as people are forced to take on debt, including higher-cost, small-dollar loans, to survive the pandemic.”