iSPARC Researcher Receives K12 Funding for Innovative Mental Health Intervention in Primary Care

We are excited to share that Clevanne Julce, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the UMass Chan Lifeline for Families Center and iSPARC researcher, has received a Mentored Career Development (K12) award from the University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical and Translational Science (UMCCTS). The overall goal of the K12 program is to develop the careers of translational scientists who will possess both the fundamental competencies and the essential characteristics that will enable them to become transformational agents of change across the translational research spectrum. The program is open to early-career UMass faculty members who seek to develop careers as independent translational scientists. To date, the K12 Scholar program, led by Catarina Kiefe, MD, PhD, has supported 30 investigators who together have produced 1,126 publications and garnered $355 million in external funding.

Mood and anxiety disorders affect one in five pregnant women and are a leading cause of maternal death. Most interventions for mood and anxiety disorders are initiated after conception, missing a critical window for prevention. Preconception care is the management of health, lifestyle, and social risk factors before pregnancy to optimize maternal and infant health. While preconception care represents a cost-effective and population-level strategy to reduce psychiatric risk, it is rarely implemented in clinical practice. To effectively address and manage mood and anxiety disorders before pregnancy, preconception interventions need to be integrated into the primary care setting where women are already being seen for routine medical care.

Dr. Julce’s K12 project, Developing a Multicomponent Intervention to Deliver Preconception Mental Health Support in Primary Care, aims to develop a multicomponent, Community Health Worker (CHW)-facilitated digital intervention to fill translational gaps in delivering preventative mental health support before pregnancy. This innovative study seeks to address critical translational gaps in preventive mental health care by integrating scalable digital health technology with community health worker–facilitated support in primary care settings. By combining scalable digital health technology with the trusted, relationship-based expertise of CHWs, the intervention aims to improve engagement and delivery of preconception mental health care in primary care. The components of the intervention will include: 1) CHW training to strengthen capacity for follow-up and clinical collaborations; 2) a digital tool for module-based screening, education, and behavior change monitoring; and 3) an implementation protocol for clinical workflow integration. This award will provide the training and formative data needed to pursue a subsequent K01 to pilot the intervention and examine its efficacy and feasibility in primary care settings.