Loneliness clinical trials at UCSF
2 research studies open to eligible people
Loneliness is a feeling of sadness from being alone. UCSF is exploring if being outdoors helps mental health and if meditation apps can boost emotional well-being in older adults. They use brain imaging to study these feelings.
BLOOM: Boldly Living outdOOrs for Mental Health
open to eligible people ages 9-12
In 2019, the Office of the California Surgeon General launched the ACEs Aware Initiative in collaboration with the California Department of Health Care Services. This ambitious campaign aims to develop a network of care model of healthcare delivery that explicitly links health resources within communities to clinicians screening patients for ACEs. The ACEs Aware Initiative recognizes nature experiences as one of seven "stress busters." Indeed, California boasts many outdoor resources for clinicians to integrate into the network of care. Through a calming effect on the autonomic nervous system, providing a setting for supportive relationships to develop and physical activity to occur, time in nature may help California prevent, heal and treat ACEs and the clinical sequelae. As one of the most common psychiatric disorders in youth, anxiety remains one of the most important sequelae of ACEs. There is a gap in evidence evaluating nature-based programs for child mental health. This study will evaluate BLOOM [Boldly Living outdOOrs for Mental health], a new intervention which is a modified version of an existing nature-based curriculum called SHINE (Stay Healthy In Nature Everyday) curriculum currently in place at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, which takes youth and their families into nature once a month for stress relief. This new intervention mirrors SHINE except that it will be tailored to children ages 9-12 with a history of ACEs and current anxiety. This study will evaluate the benefits of a group intervention model, an independent nature-outing model, and a comparison to a wait-listed control group. Our goal is to provide a scalable model for low-cost mental health care to the California Department of Health Care Services.
Oakland, California
Dynamic Neural Systems Underlying Social-emotional Functions in Older Adults
open to eligible people ages 60-120
Assess the impact of a remote, app-delivered digital meditation intervention on emotional well-being of lonely older adults. Neuroimaging and autonomic physiology will be used to assess the neural correlates of the intervention.
San Francisco, California
Our lead scientists for Loneliness research studies include Lorenzo Pasquini, PhD Nooshin Razani, MD MPH.
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