Author: Michelle Villar

21 May ReACH Lab RA Accepted to Columbia University

Congratulations to ReACH Lab Research Assistant Michelle Rodriguez for getting accepted to Columbia University! Michelle will be attending Columbia University to earn her Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology with a certificate in Public Health Research Methods. Michelle was selected as a Columbia Public Health Scholar, covering half of her program’s two year tuition. Michelle was driven to pursue this degree due to her interest in adolescent health and research, which began when she joined the FIU Teach program. Through this program, Michelle learned of the racial, social, and economic disparities in youth, and of the detriment those disparities cause in the well-being of the students. At Columbia, she hopes to gain the opportunity to assist with research projects including The Obesity Prevention Initiative or projects involving the connections between socioeconomic status and health. After finishing up her MPH program, Michelle hopes to conduct epidemiological research and plans to pursue her doctorate in Epidemiology.

Congratulations on this amazing accomplishment Michelle!

06 May ReACH Lab Director Presents “Inhaling More Than Air: Juuling & Inhalants”

Dr. Elisa Trucco, ReACH Lab director and ACE Project Co-PI, presented “Inhaling More Than Air: Juuling & Inhalants” earlier this week as part of her partnership with Campus Outreach Services (COS). Dr. Trucco presented alongside Dr. Matthew Sutherland, NBC Lab director and ACE Project Co-PI, after they were both made faculty presenters of COS. Ian Wong, Director of Health Promotion and Prevention at Tufts University, and Dr. Peter Doyle, MD, Associate Medical Director of Health Service at Tufts University, joined Drs. Trucco and Sutherland to present. COS provides a variety of programs intended to educate and enlighten students and adults of all ages, with this recent presentation provided for faculty, peers, and parents. The presentation focused on how “misleading advertising permeated the screens of teens via social media, often cloaked within social justice messaging and stress-relief promises.” Additionally, the presenters discussed the effects of nicotine on the adolescent body and brain and reviewed “current legislative initiatives to curb use and how each of us can make positive change in our communities.”

Thank you to both our ACE Project PIs for continuing to engage in community outreach in the hopes of educating the public on the facts of vaping and e-cigarettes! 

29 Apr ReACH Lab Director Appointed to Associate Director of Clinical Training for FIU CSCAP Ph.D. Program

Dr. Elisa Trucco, ReACH Lab Director and ACE Project Co-PI, has been appointed to Associate Director of Clinical Training for FIU’s Clinical Science in Child and Adolescent Psychology (CSCAP) Ph.D. program. Dr. Trucco has been at FIU since 2015, when she joined the Department of Psychology as an Assistant Professor and the Center for Children and Families as a Clinical Supervisor. She has since been awarded tenure as an Associate Professor. 

The CSCAP program aims to assist students to “advance basic knowledge in developmental psychopathology while developing and evaluating scientifically informed assessment, prevention, treatment and dissemination approaches.” The program is one of the few Psychology Ph.D. programs in the nation that offers a specialization in clinical science in child and adolescent psychology.

A huge congratulations to our lab director on this accomplishment! 

26 Apr ReACH Lab Members Present Their Research at the UF CARE Annual Symposium

The University of Florida’s 8th annual Symposium for the Center for Addiction Research & Education (CARE) was held virtually on April 20th of 2021. The symposium focused on the topic of risk, resiliency, and recovery, and featured the research of four of our very own ReACH Lab members: Sarah Hartmann, Benjelene D. Sutherland, Nasreen Hidmi, and Odette Manresa. 

Benjelene D. Sutherland presented a poster titled ‘Alexithymia Mediates the Association Between Childhood Trauma and Adolescent Substance Use.’ She found that emotional abuse predicted symptoms of alexithymia, which in turn predicted binge drinking, marijuana use, and e-cigarette use. 

Sarah Hartmann presented a poster titled ‘Risk Factors for Adolescent Substance Use: Dimensions and Profiles of Temperament.’ The research categorized three profiles of temperament: an internalizing, a withdrawn, and a resilient profile. Each profile provided more nuanced information regarding which adolescents are at greatest risk for substance use initiation. 

Nasreen Hidmi presented a poster titled ‘Student Connectedness Moderates the Association Between Friend Use and Approval of E-Cigarettes and Intentions to Use.’ Her research found that schools with low connectedness among students may increase an adolescent’s risk of initiating e-cigarettes based on their friends’ use and approval.

Odette Manresa presented a poster titled ‘The Use of Cognitive Interviews to Aid in the Development of a Measure to Assess Quantity and Frequency of Adolescent E-Cigarette Use.’ Through interviews with adolescent e-cigarette users, measures were refined to include updated pictures of nicotine products and new terms that are easier for adolescents to understand. 

We are proud of our ReACH lab members and are excited to continue presenting our findings! 

15 Apr ReACH Lab Director Awarded University Graduate School Provost Award for Mentorship of Graduate Students

ReACH Lab Director and ACE Project Co-PI, Dr. Elisa Trucco, has been awarded the University Graduate School (UGS) Provost Award for Mentorship of Graduate Students after being nominated by her three ReACH Lab graduate students. The award “recognizes excellence in the teaching and mentoring of graduate students outside the formal classroom experience” and seeks to identify mentors “who share their knowledge and experience to enhance the scholarly, professional, and personal development of graduate students.” UGS describes worthy mentors as those who “guide students in the development of research topics, help them understand the ethical issues of their disciplines, assist them in publishing their work, introduce them to career opportunities and networks, and serve as role models providing moral, emotional, and intellectual support.”

Congratulations on this exciting achievement Dr. Trucco, and thank you for all the guidance and support you offer the ReACH Lab! 

11 Apr ACE Project Researchers Host Webinar on E-cigarettes for Miami Southridge Senior High School

ACE Project graduate students, Benjelene Sutherland and Nilo Fallah-Sohy, recently hosted a webinar on e-cigarette use with support from ACE Project program coordinator, Nasreen Hidmi, and Senior research assistant, Brigitte Madan. The webinar provided information on the current rate of e-cigarette use among teens, misconceptions about e-cigarettes, and the potential risks of vaping on teens and the developing brain. With the alarming increase in rates of e-cigarette use, such outreach efforts are critical in preventing youth from initiating use and in raising awareness over health risks. Over 170 Miami Southridge Senior High School students attended the live webinar, each receiving one hour of community service for their time. Contact sheets were collected from students who expressed interest in participating in the ACE Project study.

The Southridge e-cigarette webinar is part of a larger series of community engagements that is being launched by the ACE Project. Prior to COVID-19, the ACE project team would regularly conduct speaking engagements at partner schools, in order to gather participants for the study. This new initiative makes an effort to re-engage with our community and partner schools, in order to increase participation in the re-launch of the cross-sectional portion of the ACE Project. The ACE Project team is excited to continue this initiative with partner schools in the coming months. 

01 Apr ReACH Lab Graduate Student Earns Perfect Score on Grant Submission

Congratulations to ReACH Lab 4th year graduate student, Julie Cristello, for earning a perfect score (impact score of 10 / percentile 1%) on her Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F31) submission to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This grant aims to support and facilitate the necessary training to develop an independent research career focused on examining online and offline social contexts that influence adolescent substance use. In the long-term, Julie seeks to develop a program of research focused on the use of digital technologies to examine social risk factors that lead to alcohol and drug use among adolescents and to deliver prevention programming. Through the grant, Julie aims to be trained in state-of-the-art quantitative methodologies to enhance the design, conduct, and analysis of big data to improve our current understanding of socialization effects on adolescent SU.

Julie’s work aims to address the understudied area of research relating to social media use and adolescent substance use, and aims to address limitations in the field by focusing on an adolescent population and using a more popular social media platform (i.e., Instagram). Aim 1 of the proposed project will use secondary data analyses from the ongoing ACE Project to determine whether SU attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control mediate the prospective association between exposure to SU-related content posted by peers and influential figures on offline SU behaviors. Aim 2 will collect original data, and will prospectively examine the association between online user-generated e-cigarette content on Instagram and offline e-cigarette use using a novel methodological approach. Machine learning algorithms will be developed to detect e-cigarette content on Instagram profiles, and will be compared to self-report data to assess whether the strength of this association varies based on approach.

Through this project, Julie aims to increase knowledge of adolescent SU behaviors that are not visible offline that could uniquely inform prevention programs by identifying modifiable targets for intervention that are relevant for today’s youth.

26 Mar Study Finds That Children Allowed to Sip Alcohol Start to See Alcohol More Favorably

A 2021 study found that 22% of children aged 9-11 have sipped alcohol from their parent’s drinks—typically from their father and most frequently beer. As such, the act of allowing children to sip alcohol seems to be common and harmless in most households, but research is proving that it may be negatively affecting children’s outlook on alcohol. In the study, adolescents who sipped alcohol were more likely to agree with statements that favored alcohol drinking, such as “alcohol makes people want to have fun together” and “alcohol helps a person relax, feel happy, feel less tense, and can keep a person’s mind off of mistakes at school or work.” 

These findings were highlighted in a recent TODAY article, which reviewed the current state of adolescent substance use research, in terms of parent’s allowance of alcohol sipping. Joshua Gray, an addiction researcher and assistant professor at Uniformed Services University in Maryland, was interviewed for the TODAY article. He states that “Bottom line, parents should not be giving their kids sips of alcohol. Those who’ve had a sip are more likely to report thinking that alcohol has positive effects, and that’s important because we know that the thoughts about the effects of alcohol are related to starting up drinking and ultimately drinking more heavily.” According to the researcher, those initial sips of alcohol can play a critical role in altering a child’s thought process when it comes to alcohol. The TODAY article makes mention of previous studies which shed light on parental behaviors, in which parents believe that allowing their children to sip booze lessens the appeal of alcohol. However, as research on the topic continues to emerge, we are finding that this sentiment may not hold true.

11 Mar ACE Project Featured in Article Addressing COVID-19’s Impact on Latinx E-Cigarette Use

ReACH Lab Director and ACE Project Co-PI Dr. Elisa Trucco has recently shared her research findings in an article by PantherNow—a student-run media blog at Florida International University. The article highlights an ongoing ACE Project research study, which is investigating the impact of COVID-19 on teenage e-cigarette use and mental health. 

According to Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS), adolescent e-cigarette use in Florida has increased by 78% since 2014, with 36.5% of Floridian high school students reporting use in 2020. As such, Dr. Trucco reminds us that “South Florida’s e-cigarette use [is] significantly higher than the national average, and we do see a higher rate of use within Latinx youth.” 

Despite this increase in overall e-cigarette use, there was a drop in Latinx teenage use during the COVID-19 pandemic. “COVID has perhaps been protective in terms of substance abuse, but what we do see is that it has significantly increased stress, anxiety, and depression” explains Dr. Trucco. “Some of our work suggests that increased exposure to COVID related news and increasing CDC guidelines has led to a reduction in what teens view to be their quality of life.” This increase in mental health ailments can have long-term consequences for teens, as stress, anxiety, and depression have all been linked to adolescent substance use. 

The transition to in-person classes in South Florida could possibly exacerbate the mental health impact of the pandemic. Dr. Trucco states that “once restrictions loosen up, and students go back to school, what you’re going to see is an uptick in substance use, as a way to cope with some of these elevations in mental health problems.”

The ACE project is continuing to collect COVID-19 data throughout the year of 2021. ACE researchers aim to provide insight into the pandemic’s impact on Latinx substance use, and to inform prevention efforts by educating parents and school leaders. 

06 Mar ReACH Lab Makes Headlines Discussing Ongoing COVID-19 Project