The University of Washington Population Health Initiative awarded four Tier 3 pilot grants in spring 2025 to interdisciplinary teams of population health researchers.
The goal of these awards was to support faculty and PI-eligible staff in creating follow-on opportunities for impactful projects that had developed preliminary data or realized proof-of-concept and were seeking to scale their efforts and expand the scope of their work. The funded projects addressed pressing challenges in the areas of youth mental health, opioid use disorder, decarbonization and fall-related injury prevention.
This round of awards represented researchers from six UW schools and colleges, along with a range of community-based partners. The four projects funded in this cycle have now reached key early milestones and are reporting progress in the following areas:
Investigators
Shan Liu, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Lawrence S. Wissow, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Clayton English, Department of Pharmacy
Project update
The goal of this project is to use a systems engineering approach to design an optimized and equitable statewide continuum of adolescent mental health services in Washington. We propose to develop an integrative set of quantitative models to inform service planning with three aims: Aim 1 focuses on mapping the supply-side network, Aim 2 conducts facility network optimization and Aim 3 simulates the impact of new service expansions.
We have completed Aim 1’s data collection and started the modeling work in Aim 2. First, we collected county-level data from multiple sources, including the Washington Healthy Youth Survey (HYS), Census data, Comprehensive Hospital Abstract Reporting System (CHARS) data, National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS) Mental Health Facilities Data, Behavioral Health Agency (BHA) Directory, Washington Health Care Authority (HCA) reports, CDC data on Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and healthcare workforce indicators. We also requested Merative MarketScan Atlas data access through a UW data collaborative hub.
Next, we examined the causal impact of mental health service access on youth mental health outcomes across 39 Washington counties. Our data sources informed the covariates in the causal inference model, which include sociodemographic factors (poverty, unemployment, uninsured rates, disability, language access, housing density and racial and ethnic composition), youth depression prevalence, substance use, bullying, home and school environments, social media use, eating disorders, depressive symptoms, social engagement, primary care provider rates, telehealth utilization and community risk factors.
Mental health service access is measured by the number, density and type of treatment facilities. Outcomes include hospitalization rates for mood disorders, representing severe mental health crises, and school absenteeism, representing earlier indicators of unmet mental health needs.
To address confounding between service placement and community need, we apply Double Machine Learning, a modern causal inference framework that simultaneously models predictors of service access and youth outcomes. This approach isolates the causal effect of mental health service availability from the underlying factors driving both need and facility placement.
Investigators
Clayton English, Department of Pharmacy
Anthony S. Floyd, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Jenny Arnold, Washington State Pharmacy Association
Ryan Hansen, Department of Pharmacy
Boris Zhang, Washington State Pharmacy Association
Jennifer L. Bacci, Department of Pharmacy
Project update
The goals were to demonstrate the feasibility of a maintenance model of care for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) with prescribing of medications for OUD in community pharmacies in Washington State. To dates we have achieved a number of study goals:
- Regulatory (institutional review board) approval was obtained as planned during pre-implementation.
- Expert advisory board members were identified, and two advisory board meetings have been held.
- Pharmacy workforce members were identified, recruited and trained, and necessary federal certification was obtained for qualified pharmacists to prescribe medications for OUD.
- Workforce members have participated in baseline (pre-implementation) and mid-study qualitative surveys.
- Academic detailing training and/or outreach discussions have occurred with several regional stakeholders and services providers for all pharmacy locations in order to make them aware of the service and boost patient enrollment.
- Patient recruitment began in February 2026, with two of four pharmacy locations having recruited patients as of the report date.
- Regulatory approval was obtained to modify the study eligibility criteria to expand recruitment referral sources for a potentially larger sample, and a confidential patient survey was added so that
study data would include direct patient feedback to compliment patient prescribing data and workforce experiences. - Dissemination efforts have begun with a poster presentation describing the study at the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists (AAPP) conference in April 2026 and the Northwest Pharmacy Convention in May 2026.
Investigators
Narjes Abbasabadi, Department of Architecture
Christopher Meek, Department of Architecture
Daniel Kirschen, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Mehdi Ashayeri, Southern Illinois University
Ani Krishnan, City of Seattle, Office of Sustainability & Environment
Paulina López, Duwamish River Community Coalition
Joseph Santana, Duwamish River Community Coalition
Project update
DecarbCityTwin 2.0 is advancing a community-centered digital twin platform to support health-driven and equitable decarbonization of the built environment. Focusing initially on Seattle’s Duwamish Valley, the project links air quality modeling, indoor exposure and building energy simulation, renewable energy assessment and immersive VR visualization to help residents, community organizations and decision-makers understand environmental burdens and evaluate actionable retrofit and decarbonization strategies.
During the reporting period, the team made strong progress on the platform’s technical, engagement, and dissemination goals. We completed and published a peer-reviewed article on AI-enhanced urban building energy modeling for health-driven retrofits in vulnerable communities.
We also completed a renewable-energy component that uses street-view computer vision and physics-based simulation to assess material-sensitive facade solar potential. This work has been submitted to Applied Energy and has been disseminated through posters at the CBE Research Showcase Symposium and SimBuild 2026.
In addition, we conducted a community co-creation and VR evaluation workshop with DRCC, received case-specific indoor air-quality data from our community partner for the air-quality component, and advanced a manuscript on VR-enabled digital twins and community co-creation.
Together, these outcomes position DecarbCityTwin 2.0 as a scalable platform for translating complex environmental and building-performance data into accessible, health-centered decision support for community and policy use.
Investigators
Dakotah C. Lane, Lummi Nation Health Center
Kushang V. Patel, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine
Megan Moore, School of Social Work
Elizabeth Phalen, UW Northwest Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Center
Shelly Gray, Plein Center for Aging, UW School of Pharmacy
Hilaire Thompson, School of Nursing
Aspen Avery, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center
Elise Hoffman, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center
Jin Wang, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center
Qian Qiu, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center
Project update
Falls are the primary cause of injury and a leading cause of disability, hospitalization and death among older adults in the United States. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities experience the highest rates of falls and fall-related injuries. In 2025, we partnered with the Lummi Nation Health Center (LNHC) to conduct a falls-focused health assessment and identified several existing fall prevention activities and resources, as well as opportunities to implement additional strategies to reduce fall risk among elders, drawing on the strengths of LNHC and the broader community. Utilizing the findings from the health assessment, our project aims to (1) co-design a fall prevention program for implementation in the Lummi Nation, (2) evaluate the implementation of the falls prevention program and (3) disseminate the findings of the program evaluation within the Lummi Nation and to other tribes.
Since August 2025, our research team has conducted three in-person visits to LNHC and held several co-design videoconference meetings with the LNHC Chief Medical Officer, pharmacists, nurses, physical therapists, billing specialist, electronic health record specialists and other supporting staff at LNHC. Through these visits and meetings, we co-developed a fall prevention program to be implemented at LNHC, including mapping out the healthcare providers and staff who will be involved, referral pathways, documentation in the electronic health record and implementation strategies. Specific components of this fall prevention program include implementing systematic fall screening in primary care to identify elders with increased risk of falling, referral to physical therapy to conduct fall-risk assessment and treatment, referral to community-based exercise program facilitated at the Lummi Fitness Center and referral to pharmacy to conduct medication reviews and deprescribe fall-risk increasing drugs. The fall prevention program will be launched in June 2026 at LNHC.
More information about the Population Health Initiative pilot grant program, tiering and upcoming deadlines can be found by visiting our funding page.