![]() ![]() The intervention would be the first just-in-time platform for this population. ![]() Through mathematical modeling and machine learning techniques, the app would be able to identify how likely an individual youth is to engage in substance use at a given moment and deliver supportive messaging to redirect them. The idea is that youth experiencing homelessness may be more likely to misuse substances at certain moments: after sexual or physical victimization on the streets, in times of poor mental health, or while socializing with risky networks, for example. Tyler coined the approach a just-in-time personal support intervention. The larger goal is to mitigate substance misuse, which is two to three times more prevalent among youth experiencing homelessness than among their housed peers. She aims to develop a data-driven, app-based just-in-time intervention that provides individualized support at critical junctures where alcohol and drug use may be a tempting coping mechanism. That realization - that communication via phone can provide critical support for youth experiencing homelessness - inspired Tyler to develop an idea that last year received a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the NIH–National Institute on Drug Abuse. They don’t have a lot of support, and they just really crave that interaction.” “It made them feel like someone cared about them. “Just being asked about their day was revolutionary for some of them,” said Tyler, George Holmes University Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. ![]() Engagement with Tyler’s team provided an important boost. The youth said the phones served as a lifeline to other people, enabling supportive conversations that were not typically part of their day-to-day lives. In post-study interviews, Tyler learned that cellphones - which she viewed primarily as an inexpensive device for data collection and tracking - meant much more to the participants. But for Tyler, the pilot also sparked a realization that paved the way for the next chapter of her research. The project was successful, resulting in 11 publications and novel findings about collecting data from this hard-to-reach population.
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