Project HealthTRAC: Enhancing Emotion Regulation among Overweight and Obese Adolescents Attempting to Lose Weight 

In partnership with the Oregon Health & Science University’s Healthy Lifestyles Clinic in Portland, Oregon, we are currently conducting a research study to help teens with obesity establish healthy eating and activity behaviors. The goal of this research program is to teach weight management strategies to teens with obesity.

What is involved in the HealthTRAC Study?

• Parents and teens attend weekly group sessions that focus on using healthy strategies to achieve weight loss
• Sessions are led by a team of psychologists and nutritionists
• There is no cost to you or your insurance to participate
• Families are compensated for completing study visit

Is my teen eligible?

• Teens must have obesity
• Teens must be between ages 13 and 17
• Teens must be interested in healthy weight loss
• Teens must be supported by a parent who is able to participate in meetings in English

If you are interested and want to learn more about this study, please call (503) 979-6455

 

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Project Live: Longitudinal Investigation of Virtual Reality and Emotions

Poor emotion regulation has been associated with increased adolescent engagement in substance use and sexual risk behaviors. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and index of heart rate variability across the frequency of breathing, is a physiological marker of emotion regulation. RSA may be a helpful marker for early identification of risk among adolescents. Identification of those at risk in early adolescents is critical for prevention interventions.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about adolescents’ emotion responses during risk situations involving substance use and sexual activities. Adolescents are asked to complete a challenge task on a computerized risk game and participate in a virtual reality activity where they will be exposed to a party scene in which there is no adult supervision and some of the adolescents in the scene will be using substances and flirting. Adolescents’ heart rates and breathing rates (i.e., RSA) will be recorded during the computerized risk game and the virtual reality task. Additionally, adolescents will provide saliva samples during and after the virtual reality task to provide more information about adolescents’ hormonal reactions to the virtual reality scene.

After completing both the computerized risk game and virtual reality activity, adolescents’ will also complete questionnaires that will ask about their mood and behaviors, including sexual activity and substance use. Adolescents’ will also provide urine samples to allow researchers to test for substances. Parents will also complete questionnaires that ask about their parenting behaviors as well as their adolescents’ mood and behaviors. Adolescent and parent questionnaires will be completed at baseline, 6-, 12-, 19-, and 24- months post-baseline.

 

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Project STRONG: Dating Violence Prevention Program Focusing on Middle School Boys

Over the past ten years dating violence (DV) has been recognized as a significant public health problem affecting adolescents. Emerging data suggest that boys and girls have different developmental trajectories toward violence and therefore prevention programs that target their unique pathways to DV are needed. Despite this need, there is a relative dearth of such gender-informed programs for early adolescent boys. This research project aims to prevent the emergence of DV perpetration/ victimization among boys by developing a web-based intervention that is informed by research on gender-specific pathways to violence and harnesses the influence of parents during the early adolescent years.

Among boys, the perpetration of delinquency-related violence and attitudes supporting violence has been found to predict later perpetration of DV. Thus, gender-informed interventions designed to prevent DV in boys need to target skills that underlie violent behavior and attitudes. The goal of this study is to test a web-based intervention to enhance emotion regulation skills and parent-son relationship communication to prevent DV.

A pilot trial was conducted to create and test the efficacy of the web-based intervention. Preliminary results suggested the program was effective in reducing dating-violence involvement. This Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) will test the efficacy of the intervention against an active control designed to provide health related information in a format similar to that of the intervention condition. 340 families (English or Spanish-speaking) will be randomly assigned to complete the intervention program or the health-promotion control program. All families will complete the program in an observed setting, to ensure fidelity to intervention dosing. Parents and adolescents will complete the program together and then complete assessments of aggressive and risk behaviors, parent-child communication, and emotion regulation at baseline, 3-month,6-month, 12-month, 18-month, and 24-month follow-ups.