2003 — 2007 |
Cano, Annmarie [⬀] |
K01Activity Code Description: For support of a scientist, committed to research, in need of both advanced research training and additional experience. |
Depression and Chronic Pain in Marriage
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The principal investigator (PI) is requesting five years of funding through the Scientist Development Award for New Minority Faculty (K01). The career development goals described in this application include testing an integrative model of depression and chronic pain developed by the applicant and training in theoretical and conceptual issues, advanced longitudinal statistical methods, objective interview assessment of life events, observational research methods with couples, and the responsible conduct of research with ethnic minorities. These activities are expected to build on the Pl's strong research and clinical background in marriage and enhance her ability to produce sophisticated scholarly work. Major depression and chronic pain are costly public health problems in the United States that are highly comorbid with each other. Although research suggests that marital variables may contribute to depression, researchers have yet to integrate existing theory and empirical findings into a comprehensive model that accounts for the interrelationships between marital functioning, chronic pain, and depression. Building on the career development activities described in the application, the PI will test an integrative model of the comorbidity of chronic pain and depression in which marital functioning plays a key role. The long-term objective of the study is to develop marital treatments for individuals experiencing both depression and chronic pain. The specific aims of the study include examining how changes in general marital functioning (e.g., marital satisfaction, affect expressed in a marital interaction, marital stressors), pain-specific marital functioning (e.g., spouse responses to pain, affect expressed in a marital interaction related to the impact of pain on the couple), and pain factors (e.g., pain severity, disability) relate to changes in depression over time. Participants will be 160 married couples in the community in which one spouse has a chronic musculoskeletal pain problem. Participant couples will complete surveys, a diagnostic interview for major depression, a life events interview, and two videotaped marital interactions. Participants will also take part in 6- and 12-month follow-ups in which they will complete the same instruments. Participants will be paid upon completion of each phase of the study. [unreadable] [unreadable]
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2012 — 2013 |
Cano, Annmarie [⬀] |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Rct of An Animal-Assisted Intervention in Adjudicated Youth
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is submitted to RFA-HD-12-105: The Role of Human-Animal Interaction in Child Health and Development (R03). Adjudicated adolescents residing in juvenile detention centers exhibit a host of behavioral and mental health problems including internalizing and externalizing behaviors, frequent fighting, and academic failure. The public and social cost of dealing with this group of adolescents is extremely high. Many of these adolescents lack prosocial skills, such as empathy, that might aid in their rehabilitation. Intervention programs that promote empathy and other prosocial skills in an experiential manner may provide youth with the tools to better manage their own emotions and deal with others in a more appropriate manner, thereby preventing future problems. One promising class of experiential intervention that has received a great deal of attention is animal-assisted intervention (AAI). Yet, existing research studies have not tested these interventions in a controlled manner. There is a great need to rigorously test AAIs as a tool to enhance empathy in adjudicated adolescents, especially since states and vicinities are instituting these programs without controlled testing. The purpose of this proposed study is to test the efficacy of an AAI to improve empathy and social functioning skills in 128 adolescents residing in a juvenile detention center in Michigan. Our central hypothesis is that an AAI that teaches adjudicated youth to train animal shelter dogs for adoption will promote empathy and prosocial behavior. We propose a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to compare the outcomes of the AAI with a control group that will receive animal education and dog-walking experience. Thus, our rigorous comparison will allow us to test the effects of the AAI against an animal-contact and education control. Such a test has not been conducted before. We also hypothesize that building a secure attachment will be a mechanism for these effects because the adolescents will have a safe relationship from which to learn empathy skills. Participants will be randomly assigned to the AAI or the control group and will complete self-report and observational measures of empathy and other measures. The aims of the proposal are to: 1) test the efficacy of the AAI to improve self-reported and observed empathy toward humans, 2) examine secure attachment toward the dog as a mechanism for this effect, and 3) explore the extent to which the AAI also reduces externalizing and internalizing symptoms. This proposal's aims are consistent with the RFA's call for the empirical testing of interventions based on theoretical and empirical research on the beneficial role of animals in child health and development. Furthermore, the proposal will form the basis of a long-term research program centered on the development and dissemination of effective interventions for adolescents with behavioral and mental health problems. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The public and social cost of adolescent adjudication is extremely high. Many adjudicated adolescents lack prosocial skills, such as empathy, that might aid in their rehabilitation. Although animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) are promising methods to improve empathy in this population, existing research studies have not tested these interventions in a controlled manner. To address this problem, we propose to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an existing AAI that teaches adjudicated adolescents to train animal shelter dogs to improve empathy. This project will form the basis of a long-term research program aimed at testing and disseminating effective treatments for adolescents with mental health and behavioral problems.
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2013 — 2019 |
Cano, Annmarie (co-PI) [⬀] Dunbar, Joseph |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
The Michigan Agep Alliance For Transformation (Maa): Mentoring and Community Building to Accelerate Successful Progression Into the Professoriate
The Michigan AGEP Alliance for Transformation (MAA) was created in response to the NSF's Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program solicitation (NSF 12-554) for the AGEP-Transformation (AGEP-T) track. The AGEP-T track targets strategic alliances of institutions and organizations to develop, implement, and study innovative evidence-based models and standards for STEM graduate education, postdoctoral training, and academic STEM career preparation that eliminate or mitigate negative factors and promote positive practices for underrepresented. The Michigan AGEP Alliance for Transformation (MAA): Mentoring and Community Building to Accelerate Successful Progression into the Professoriate represents a collaboration between the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Wayne State University, and Western Michigan University.
The long-term vision and planned outcome of MAA is to increase the success U.S. citizens who are underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in all fields of STEM through graduate study, postdoctoral training and the professoriate. This vision and outcome is being addressed by pursuing the following three overarching goals of the MAA: 1) Adapting two existing models, one for fostering multidisciplinary learning communities with diverse students and the other for improving faculty mentoring of URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, to the needs of the five MAA campuses; 2) Studying their effects on the academic identity and career progress of U.S. citizens who are URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in STEM programs; and 3) Implementing more widely on campuses those models that lead to improved academic outcomes and widespread institutional change.
The objectives for this project are: Objective 1: Designing, adapting and implementing evidence-based mentoring initiatives, on all five campuses, that are focused on improved mentoring for U.S. URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in all fields of STEM. Objective 2: Designing, adapting and implementing evidence-based initiatives to promote interdisciplinary learning communities, on all five campuses, that are focused on improved mentoring for U.S. URM STEM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Objective 3: Conducting research about the ways in which improved mentoring and improved sense of community are linked to a sense of academic identity, and the ways in which academic identity is linked to important academic and career outcomes, for U.S. URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in all STEM fields. Objective 4: Conducting research about the ways in which departmental and university variables moderate the relations among mentoring, community, academic identity and academic outcomes for U.S. citizens who are URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in all STEM disciplines.
The primary activities that contribute to the model for the alliance include: 1. Designing, adapting and implementing the University of Michigan's Mentoring Others Results in Excellence (MORE) model as a foundation for improving mentoring of U.S. URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in STEM. This includes training facilitators who run faculty mentoring workshops, conducting mentoring workshops, training advanced level students for intergenerational mentoring, and developing/distributing individualized mentoring agreements to faculty and STEM programs. 2. Designing, adapting and implementing the Michigan State University's interdisciplinary learning community model as a foundation for improving the sense of belonging, peer support and academic identify of U.S. URM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in STEM. This includes training facilitators, conducting institution-specific community meetings, and holding MAA-wide community meetings for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty.
The MAA includes a social science research study that will explore the mechanisms that help explain the under-representation and attrition of URM students in STEM, as well as the contextual and individual factors that can promote academic persistence and success in those fields. The research team predicts that racial/ethnic stigma experiences in students' academic contexts lead to dis-identification from the academic discipline, which then leads to lower academic performance and completion. They also predict that contextual-level resources, such as high-quality mentoring, moderate these relationships. Examples of specific study hypotheses being tested include: 1. Students reporting more negative department diversity climates (stigma experiences) will report lower sense of belonging (affective indicator of academic identity) in their academic departments than students reporting positive diversity climates. 2. Students reporting having higher quality mentoring relationships with their faculty advisors will report more positive academic identity outcomes (higher perceived preparation, higher sense of belonging, higher curricular/professional involvement) than students reporting lower quality mentoring relationships. 3. Quality mentoring will moderate the association between stigma (e.g., reported negative department climate) and academic identity (e.g., reported sense of belonging), such that the negative association of negative department diversity climate with sense of belonging will be stronger for students reporting lower quality mentoring relative to those reporting higher quality mentoring.
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2014 — 2015 |
Cano, Annmarie [⬀] |
R21Activity Code Description: To encourage the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) |
Preliminary Test of An Integrative Intervention to Alleviate Chronic Pain and Imp
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic pain is a costly public health problem that is associated with poor quality of life. While promising treatments for pain have been developed, a number of chronic pain patients-those with interpersonal dis- tress-often do not complete, and thus, do not benefit fully from individual treatments. Even among treatment completers, one cannot expect individuals to maintain change if they return to distressed social environments. The purpose of this proposal, which is in response to PA-13-119 Mechanisms, Models, Measurement, & Management in Pain Research (R21) and NCCAM's call for the development of mindfulness interventions for chronic pain, is to provide a preliminary test of a new integrativ model of pain that posits that psychological flexibility skills must be exercised within a supportie environment. We will test this model by refining and piloting a novel couple-based intervention for people with chronic pain and marital distress that aims to alleviate chronic pain by addressing each partner's individual and relationship skills. This is a departure from current practice, which focuses solely on the patient's individual functioning, does not ad- dress the spouse's psychological inflexibility, and does not address relationship problems. Our central hypothesis is that a theoretically integrative intervention that improves both partners' psychological flexibility (i.e., acceptance, mindfulness, values-based action) and relational flexibility (i.e., emotional disclosure, empathic responding) skills will be feasible and valid and that it will alleviate pain and improve quality of life. This proposal stems from our substantial theoretical development, descriptive research, and intervention research in pain. In addition, the proposal's aims are consistent with NCCAM's high priority on research testing the extent to which mindfulness alleviates pain and a range of quality of life outcomes. Phase 1 will consist of an open trial of 5 couples to refine intervention materials. During this phase, therapist training and supervision procedures will be developed and tools will be identified or created to assess treatment adherence and competence, and couples' engagement in and response to treatment. During Phase 2, a randomized pilot trial of 50 couples will be undertaken to test the integrative model. Pre- and post-treatment and 3- month follow up assessments will be conducted to test the ability of the intervention to reduce pain severity (primary outcome) and improve other indicators of pain and quality of life (secondary outcomes) relative to a wait-list control group. Psychological flexibility and relational flexibility variables will be identified as mechanisms of treatment outcomes. The results from this project will be used as background work for a larger funding proposal (e.g., R01) to test the intervention in a rigorous RCT. Thus, the proposed research will foster the translation of basic research on psychological flexibility and relationshi processes to intervention development and contribute to our long-term objective to develop, test, and disseminate effective mind-body treatments for physical disorders that account for patients' social context.
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