FOCUS
Henry Willis is interested in exploring how specific sociocultural risk (i.e., race-related stress) and protective (i.e., racial identity) factors affect the mental health of African-Americans. During his doctoral program, he plans to translate this research into cultural adaptations of mental health treatments for underserved populations. He also will begin creating mobile-health mental health applications that can disseminate low- or no-cost treatment to underserved populations in an attempt to reduce mental health disparities.
MORE ABOUT HENRY
Henry is a student in the clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a graduate student researcher in the African American Youth Wellness Lab. Henry is originally from Jackson, Mississippi and completed his undergraduate career at Howard University, majoring in Psychology with a focus on African American Studies. He went on to gain a Master of Arts degree in Psychology and Education, with a concentration on Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, from Columbia University. He is currently an executive board member of the National Student Circle board of the Association of Black Psychologists.
DISSERTATION GRANT AWARDEE — MAY 2019
Developing a Culturally-Adapted Mobile Mental Health Intervention: A Multi-Study, Mixed Methods Approach
African American young adults are less likely to have access to evidence-based treatments for mental health symptoms, yet mobile-health interventions may increase access to evidence-based treatment options. For mobile-Health interventions to be effective, it is important that they are culturally-adapted to address the unique sociocultural risk and protective factors that may impact psychological well-being for this group (i.e., online racial discrimination and racial identity beliefs, respectively). In light of this, the proposed dissertation will explore a variety of questions over three studies that will lay the foundation for the development of a culturally-adapted mHealth intervention for mental health for African American young adults.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HPRS DISSERTATION AWARDS, CLICK HERE.
