Strengthening Adolescents and Families Everyday (SAFE) Lab

This project aims to characterize parent-youth supportive communication in the daily lives of youth with high and low depression risk and examine its short-term impacts on daily youth emotions, using novel intensive longitudinal methods that capture conversations in real-time and in real-world settings. Findings from this innovative study will help to pinpoint strategies for improving supportive communication in daily life, and inform family-focused interventions that can prevent adolescent depression. 

• Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (R21), Society for Research on Child Development, and Penn State Social Science Research Institute 

• Collaborators: Tim Brick, Erika Lunkenheimer, and Andy High 

To refine existing broad-based prevention programs to target suicide risk more efficiently as a high priority secondary outcome, we must examine the change mechanisms by which such prevention programs reduce suicide risk. Using data from the PROSPER Trial (Spoth et al., 2004), this study examines the long-term effects of a school-based and family-focused intervention system designed to prevent adolescent substance misuse, on suicidal ideation. We examine connectedness to school, peers, and family, as well as the developmental trajectory of substance misuse as mediators of the long-term effect of the PROSPER intervention on suicidality in young adulthood using novel causal mediation analysis.

• Funded by the Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (KL2)

• Mentors: Mark Feinberg, Greg Fosco, and Elizabeth Stuart (John Hopkins) 

This study aims to understand how patterns in elementary students’ attention, mood, and stress fluctuate from day-to-day over the course of the school year. We are interested in how family relationships, peer relationships, and educational experiences affect these patterns, and whether school social emotional learning (SEL) instruction practices help improve attention, mood, and stress.

• Funded by the Department of Human Development and Family Studies 

• Collaborators: Greg Fosco 

This longitudinal research study is being conducted to find out how adolescents and their parents engage with recreation and with their families and communities, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the summer of 2020, adolescents and parents throughout the U.S. have been invited to complete an annual online research survey about their health, recreation and engagement with their families and communities.

• Funded by the College of Health and Human Development 

• Collaborators: Jen P. Agans 

This pilot study aims to reduce adolescent suicide risk by engaging youths and parents together in daily monitoring and coping strategy, delivered via their smartphones. The study evaluates whether this daily monitoring and coping strategy is acceptable, useful and helpful to teens and parents. Data collection is complete.

• Funded by the American Psychological Foundation 

• Mentor: Joan Asarnow (UCLA)