Monica Swahn
Virginia Commonwealth University, VA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Poverty is closely linked to mental illness. We still know little about what helps young women stay resilient against the daily stresses of poverty in cities.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Psychology
Social Science
- Topics
global mental health
adolescent girls and young women
poverty
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Determine how Socioeconomic Strengthening Targeted Training (SeSTT), a vocational skills program, changes the pathway from poverty to mental illness among young women aged 18–24 in Kampala's informal settlements, using a 27-month prospective cohort.
- Compare 150 program participants with 150 age- and location-matched community peers on anxiety, depression, suicidality and substance use, using 10 quarterly tablet-administered surveys.
- Measure stress as described by the Research Domain Criteria framework, using fear conditioning, stress hormones in saliva, self-reports, and sleep patterns from wearable Garmin sensors.
- Use a mixed-methods design guided by multilevel contextual and Research Domain Criteria frameworks to identify the mechanisms by which economic empowerment builds resilience against poverty-related stressors.
More about the research
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 18–24 are a key group to study, because many mental health symptoms first appear at this age. This project asks whether economic empowerment can break the link between poverty and mental illness. It also asks how this protection works in the body and in daily life.
Why it matters
This work could show whether vocational and economic empowerment programs prevent or reduce anxiety, depression, suicidality and substance use among young women living in poverty in cities. By identifying the biological and behavioral pathways involved, the findings may inform mental health prevention strategies, policies and health system planning in the U.S. and globally. This could help reduce the burden of mental illness and its healthcare costs for young women.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Margaret Gichane
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Characterize what economic empowerment means for adolescent girls and young women in Kenya, using qualitative research based on grounded theory.
Audrey Pettifor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Test whether the longitudinal link between childhood adversity and depression differs by cash transfer exposure, using HPTN 068 trial data on 2,533 rural South African girls and Child Support Grant data from the Agincourt surveillance system.
Martha E Wadsworth
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Psychology
Test whether the BaSICS coping and empowerment program reduces depression, anxiety and suicidality in clinically referred low-income young adolescents, using a randomized trial across four central Pennsylvania sites.
The school
Virginia Commonwealth University: 19 labs on PI Pages, $524M a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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