Over the past two decades, Idaho has consistently ranked among the lowest in the nation for youth mental health outcomes, ranking last in 2022 (BCIF, 2024). Recent research highlights significant unmet needs and service gaps in youth mental health and substance abuse care across the state. This study is intended to explore key stakeholders’ perspectives, including the perspectives of mental health providers, educators, nonprofit staff, and policy advocates, on the current state of youth mental health resources in Idaho. By centering the voices of professionals directly involved in service delivery and advocacy, this research seeks to generate actionable insights around the themes of awareness, access, and effectiveness. Findings aim to inform policy recommendations, guide resource allocation, and support the development of more equitable and responsive youth mental health systems. Ultimately, this work contributes to broader efforts to strengthen mental health infrastructure in Idaho’s rural and underserved communities.

Research suggests online interactions can provide men with social support and friendship satisfaction comparable to offline relationships. However, the nuanced relationship between online social connection and men's mental well-being remains unclear. While Best, Taylor, and Manktelow found a statistically significant association between online friends and mental well-being, the effect size was small. This, coupled with a lack of qualitative research exploring the "why" and "how", necessitates further investigation. This study aims to explore how online social interactions influence men's perceived mental well-being. It hypothesizes that men actively engaging in meaningful online interactions, characterized by self-disclosure, emotional support, and shared interests, will report higher levels of well-being, regardless of online friend count. Semi-structured interviews with diverse men will reveal how they experience and benefit from online relationships. Findings may inform interventions supporting men's mental health in the digital age.

Personal and overall wellness, safety in communities, endurance, and wealth are all significantly influenced by social connection. Disruption or imbalances in these aspects of life can be detrimental to mental and physical health. Loneliness and social isolation are sometimes seen as separate conditions; each of them indicates a lack of interaction with others, and the signs and outcomes differ depending on the age category. Despite their important ramifications, it is still difficult to fully comprehend how these variables affect middle childhood and adolescence in particular. The purpose of this study is to understand and examine the impacts of loneliness and isolation on individuals throughout the crucial phases of middle childhood and adolescence (6-18 years old). Through a thorough literature review, this study will pinpoint the main causes of loneliness and isolation, examine the various ways they present over age groups, and investigate both the immediate and long-term effects of these conditions. Additionally, we will be surveying the youth to gain insight about their individual social connections, such as their assessed level of extroversion, frequency of interactions, and people they trust. We hypothesize that among these age groups, different degrees of interpersonal connection will be substantially associated with mental health results, academic achievement, and riskier conduct. This research is essential as it will guide the placement of resources and focused treatments, promoting healthy social growth and enhancing youths' overall wellness while emphasizing the urgent need for further research in this underrepresented field.

Psycholinguistic research has examined interactions between accent and race concerning hireability in the United States. However, the majority of studies only use male speakers, leaving out an important demographic. Women have been neglected. Our study examines how the intersection of gender, race, and accent influences stereotypic measures (i.e, competence, warmth) and hireability. Participants in an online sample viewed photographs and listened to audio clips presumably taken from four speakers, balanced between gender (woman or man), race (Asian or White), and accent (Standard American English [SAE] or non-standard). Given negative stereotypes about non-prototypical individuals in the workplace, we predict that gender, race, and accent will interact to influence hireability ratings, such that Asian women with a non-standard accent will be evaluated as lower in competence, warmth, and hireability compared to all other speakers. This prediction will be explained by the degree to which participants rate Asians in prototypicality, threat to the ingroup, and the level of participants’ prior accent exposure. This study aims to highlight the influence of identity intersectionality on hireability.

Caregivers of young children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often experience elevated psychological distress, with anxiety being one of the most prevalent and disruptive symptoms. This proposed study aims to examine the impact of caregiver anxiety on the effectiveness of early Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy in children aged 3 to 5. While ABA is a widely supported intervention for behavioral, social, and communication development, its success often depends on caregiver consistency, emotional availability, and engagement. Using a convergent mixed-methods design, the study will gather quantitative data from anxiety-related items in the Parenting Stress Index–Short Form (PSI-SF) and qualitative data from semi-structured caregiver interviews. Findings from this study are expected to inform the development of caregiver-focused supports, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), to improve both caregiver well-being and child therapy outcomes in early ABA interventions.

This study asks why Latino immigrants are less likely to seek mental health services, compares caregivers’ attitudes, and explores potentials of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Mascayano argues that specific Latinoamerican cultural factors be analyzed through public stigma, self stigma, and family stigma. Latin American studies have shown colonialism and stigma as permeating Latino culture. Mascayano’s framework is thus productive for understanding US immigrants. The study measured religiosity, social values, immigration status effects, self stigma, public stigma, family stigma, and help-seeking levels. within 74 participants with the use of the Latino Spiritual Perspectives Scale, Latino/a Values Scale, and Perceived Immigration Policy Effects Scale, a knowledge check, an original video filmed for the purposes of informing the viewer about PCIT, and the Parental Attitudes Toward Psychological Services Inventory Adapted for PCIT. Results found that after watching the video about PCIT, help-seeking intentions was a significant positive predictor of help-seeking attitudes. Familismo was also found to be a significant positive predictor of help-seeking attitudes while stigmatization was a significant positive predictor of help-seeking intentions. None of the cultural factors had a significant effect on general help-seeking towards PCIT. There was no discernable difference found between men and women. These results could be because of the smaller participant pool. With all that in mind, the goal with understanding cultural obstacles to PCIT is to hopefully help make mental health services for Latino immigrant families accessible by outlining the importance of centering family in strategies for improving behaviors and mental health.

Mental health professionals are shown to have varied perspectives on involuntary treatment. Some may believe it can have a positive impact, while some critique its coerciveness (Canvin et al., 2014). Involuntary treatment poses a challenge to mental health professionals to reconcile therapeutic relationships with patients put into coercive care (Wyder, Bland, Blythe, Matarasso, & Crompton, 2015). There is limited research on mental health provider perspectives on involuntary psychiatric commitment as well as on the effectiveness of coercive treatment in general. This exploratory study will address mental health providers’ perspectives on involuntary psychiatric care for their patients and how mandatory reporting of patients to involuntary psychiatric care impacts the mental health providers’ well-being. This will be a qualitative process of interviewing mental health providers who have mandatorily reported patients to involuntary psychiatric commitment. This study utilizes an interpretive phenomenological analysis framework that aims to understand how people make sense of an experience. Studying the perspectives of mental health providers on involuntary care may give awareness to racial and socioeconomic disparities in treatment. The purpose of this study is to understand the role involuntary psychiatric commitment plays in different mental health providers' treatment in order to inform potential alternatives practices to supporting people in mental health crises.

This paper investigates the relationship between two acoustic voicing cues, voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (f0), during early speech perception. Previous research shows evidence of how listeners encode tones in the auditory N100. However, little is known about perceptual encoding of American-English words using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology. In the current study, we ask how differences in VOT and F0 appear in the amplitude of the auditory N100 ERP by altering stimuli with 7 VOT steps, 3 f0 steps, and 3 word pairs. Participants were given headphones to hear stimuli sounds. They then saw a bar on the computer screen with a word on each end. Subjects were instructed to indicate where they thought the sound fell between two endpoints by using the bar as a scale. We find that the mean N1 data mirrors the behavioral results, the VOT encoding effect is significant, and the VOT/f0 interaction is significant. There are differences in the N1 as a function of f0 at the voiced end of the continuum, but not at the voiceless end. These results support the idea that listeners integrate the two cues early across a range of phonetic contrasts in speech.

Undocumented immigrants in the United States face significant barriers to healthcare access. Including being excluded from the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Child Health Insurance Program. Some states have expanded Medicaid eligibility to undocumented individuals such as Connecticut’s HUSKY program. However, little is known about how immigrant communities understand and access these healthcare expansions. Using participatory research methods and liberation psychology frameworks, this study conducted four focus groups in three languages (Spanish, Arabic, and English) with 15 participants from diverse immigrant communities in Connecticut between November 2023 and February 2024. Participants were recruited through community partnerships and included individuals of mixed immigration statuses, 0.73 female, majority earning less than 25,000 dollars annually, 0.80 having children, and 0.67 unregistered with HUSKY. A thematic analysis was conducted on transcribed and translated focus group data. From which, participants identified multiple barriers beyond healthcare access expansion, including language barriers, discrimination, financial concerns, and lack of culturally competent care. Along with that, community organizations emerged as crucial sources for healthcare information dissemination, with participants reporting that healthcare providers often were not aware of available resources and programs. Findings suggest that more is required than expanding healthcare access. As without addressing broader systemic barriers including cultural competency, language accessibility, and provider education. This study highlights the crucial role community organizations play in bridging information gaps, and advocates for more comprehensive approaches to improving immigrant healthcare access that address both structural and cultural barriers to care.