UNC researchers with the School of Medicine (SOM) and the School of Social Work have been awarded $500,000 to support an innovative project that aims to improve the mental health of children in North Carolina.
Principal investigator Samantha Schilling, an associate professor of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine with SOM, and co-PI Paul Lanier, an associate professor within the School of Social Work, are among two campus-based investigative teams to receive funding as part of the University’s Creativity Hubs Award program. An investigative team with faculty from the School of Pharmacy, SOM, and from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research was also awarded for a novel approach to the rapid discovery of new therapeutics.
As the signature intramural funding program of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Creativity Hubs has served as an important catalyst for several major research projects at Carolina, said Interim Vice Chancellor for Research Penny Gordon-Larsen.
“These awards provide an engine for convergent projects that address some of the world’s greatest challenges through innovative approaches with tangible impact,” Gordon-Larsen said. “I am so excited about this year’s projects.”
To date, winning Creativity Hubs projects have stimulated exciting results and tens of millions in extramural funding. Through this award, both teams are eligible for a half million dollars in continued funding to execute their project over the next two years. Proposal development assistance is also provided to awardees to pursue large-scale, follow-on awards that build from the program’s funding.
Schilling, Lanier and their research team, which includes Kirsten Hassmiller Lich, Michael Kosorok, and Mark Holmes with Gillings School of Global Public Health and Kori Flower, Stephanie Brennan, and Brianna Lombardi with SOM, were awarded for their development of a “Systems Science Hub.” This hub aims to bring together data scientists, policymakers, public health leaders, clinical providers, and community members with lived experiences with mental health issues to examine and strengthen the youth mental health system.
Nationally, nearly one in five children have a mental health disorder. Moreover, suicide ranks as the second-leading cause of death for children, ages 10 to 17. Yet, research has shown that only 20% of these children ever receive treatment from a mental health provider.
In North Carolina, the need for youth mental health services is also a serious concern. The state currently has the highest prevalence in the nation of children living with an untreated mental health diagnosis. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this crisis and exposed the ineffectiveness of the state’s mental health system, researchers noted.
“As a primary care pediatrician, I’ve seen first-hand the mental health crisis affecting children in North Carolina. Youth mental health is one of the biggest public health problems we face, and now is the time to act,” Schilling said. “Paul and I are well-positioned to take action along with an incredible team of scientists, mental health experts, and our critical partners.”
Leveraging existing data and deploying data science methods present an underused opportunity for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of a highly stressed and fragmented mental health system.
In collaboration with the UNC School of Data Science and Society, the Systems Science Hub will use a combination of participatory methods and data science to build a complex simulation model of the system and then apply machine learning methods to improve modeling efficiency and identify patterns from large administrative datasets.
The project will provide a platform for data scientists to work directly with policymakers, public health leaders, clinical providers, community members, and experts across scientific disciplines to design systems that improve the mental health of children in the state.
Grounded in an ongoing partnership with NC Integrated Care for Kids, the Systems Science Hub is critical for gaining family, community, and stakeholder input and for the translation of findings into real-time changes, the researchers agreed. Although the use of system dynamics and data science has not been applied to the youth mental health crisis to date, the UNC multidisciplinary team aims to leverage this innovation to create lasting impact, Lanier added.
“The Creativity Hubs award will be a game-changer for our research team,” he said. “With this funding, we’ll have the resources needed to bring an amazing collaborative group together and apply our collective skills to this critical issue. We hope that the data will help us understand what has transpired with youth mental health services over the past few years and tell the story about how the system can better support families.
