# Preventive Effects of Treatment for Childhood Mental Illness on Adolescent Substance Use

> **NIH NIH K23** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $154,465

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
This revised K23 Mentored Career Development Award will support the candidate in developing an independent research
career to investigate determinants of children’s mental health services use in usual care settings and the long-term
preventive effects of children’s mental health services use on adolescent behavioral outcomes including psychosocial
functioning and substance use. This award will provide the candidate with extensive training in substance use
epidemiology, health policy, health services research, advanced longitudinal data analysis and latent variable analysis, and
mixed-methods research. This training will permit the candidate to expand understanding of how evidence-based mental
health services impact later substance use, an important public health outcome, and inform more individualized targeted
mental health services and substance use prevention. This K23 Award will provide the candidate the methodological and
analytical skills needed to reach a long-term career goal of developing and implementing a patient-centered research
program focused on improving youths’ substance use outcomes and access to quality care. Randomized controlled trial
follow-up studies suggest that treatment for childhood mental disorders (CMD) reduces risk of substance use; however,
these studies cannot elucidate how patterns of children’s use of mental health services in the community affect later
substance use. Further, research identifying moderators and mediators of the association between treatment for childhood
mental illness and later substance use is lacking. Thus, the proposed research project will examine treatment patterns for
primary CMD, associated substance use outcomes in adolescence, and potential mediating and moderating factors of the
association. Additionally, a mixed methods approach, including focus group data from key stakeholders (adolescents,
their parents, and mental health care providers), will further elucidate barriers and facilitators to evidence-based mental
health services and other treatment challenges. Specific aims include: 1) Characterize children’s patterns of mental health
service use in usual care settings; identify demographic and clinical factors associated with continuity of service use and
receipt of guideline concordant care; 2) Determine the effects of usual care on proximal risk factors for SUD and
subsequent problematic substance use; assess whether proximal risk factors mediate the effect of usual care for CMD on
problematic substance use in adolescence. 3) Assess whether early SUD risk factors moderate the effect of usual care for
CMD on problematic substance use in adolescence. 4) Assess the reciprocal effects of substance use/SUD and CMD over
the course of child and adolescent development. 5) Conduct focus groups with key stakeholders to gain a deeper
understanding of barriers to guideline-concordant care and aid in developing strategies to optimize access to quality care
and decrease ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10180930
- **Project number:** 5K23DA044288-04
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Andrea S Young
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $154,465
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-07-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10180930

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10180930, Preventive Effects of Treatment for Childhood Mental Illness on Adolescent Substance Use (5K23DA044288-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10180930. Licensed CC0.

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