# Reducing Risk: A Comprehensive mHealth Sleep Health Intervention for Adolescents at Risk for Depression and Anxiety Disorders

> **NIH NIH K23** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $34,848

## Abstract

Project Summary
This application for a Mentored Patient-Oriented Career Development Award (K23) aims to support additional
training and research that will enable the candidate to achieve her career goal of becoming an independent
clinical scientist conducting research aimed at preventing mental illness among adolescents. Adolescence is a
critical period characterized by dramatic increases in rates of depression and anxiety disorders, hereafter
referred to as internalizing disorders (IDs). Problems with sleep health are ubiquitous and modifiable targets
that precede and predict the development of IDs. This project uses an experimental design to (a) improve
sleep health (through a sleep focused treatment), (b) determine whether improving sleep positively impacts
behavioral and biological substrates of risk associated with the development of IDs and (c) elucidate target
mechanisms underlying the effect of poor sleep health on behavioral and biological substrates of ID risk. The
present study will test an innovative adaptation of Transdiagnostic Sleep and Circadian Intervention (TranS-C),
a sleep health treatment that improves sleep and mental health and effectively treats the most common sleep
health deficits among adolescents, each of which was previously shown to be independently associated with
increased risk for IDs. To overcome the challenge of low availability of qualified providers as a barrier to
treatment access, we adapted TranS-C for mobile device delivery (referred to as mTranS-C), thereby
leveraging the high rates of mobile phone use among adolescents. To further increase access, we will test
mTranS-C within primary care services, a proven strategy for improving access to behavioral health care. The
application builds on the candidates’ prior work in transdiagnostic mechanisms of mental illness, identifying
targets for intervention and the prevention of ID’s, and evidence based interventions for sleep problems. The
proposed training plan emphasizes the following new training areas for the candidate: (1) treatment
development and assessment, specifically as it pertains to mHealth platforms, (2) the biology and objective
measurement of the HPA axis (a biological substrate of risk), and (3) statistical methods for analyzing
longitudinal data sets. An inter-disciplinary team of mentors and consultants consisting of international leaders
in the areas of sleep interventions, developmental psychopathology, mHealth technologies, and statistical
methods, will provide the expertise to help the candidate meet her training objectives.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10797352
- **Project number:** 3K23MH116520-06S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Lauren Asarnow
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $34,848
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-22 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10797352

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10797352, Reducing Risk: A Comprehensive mHealth Sleep Health Intervention for Adolescents at Risk for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (3K23MH116520-06S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-14 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10797352. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*