Erin L Thompson

Research topics

Matched from this investigator's NIH project titles and abstracts.

• Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
• Health Disparities in Mental Health
• Child and Adolescent Development
• PTSD and Trauma

Active NIH awards

• School Discipline and Adolescent Health: The Role of Early Adversity and Neurodevelopment

  5K01MD018069-04

  NIMHD · FY 2025 · $112K

  ABSTRACT Adolescence is a key developmental period during which educational experiences shape long-term mental and physical health. Youth who disengage from school are at increased risk for mental health concerns and substance use. School-related factors, including exclusionary disciplinary practices, play an important role in influencing both academic engagement and health trajectories. The effects of these school-based experiences may be further shaped by early life stressors. Childhood adversity, such as exposure to violence, can contribute to increased sensitivity to stress and disrupt behavioral regulation, in part through its impact on neurodevelopment. These neurobiological adaptations may interact with educational factors to influence health outcomes during adolescence. This K01 proposal will leverage data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a large, longitudinal study of youth in the United States, to examine how individual, community, and school-related factors shape adolescent mental health and substance use outcomes. The project will pursue the following three research aims: (1) Examine how school discipline is associated with adolescent mental health and substance use, while accounting for broader contextual influences (e.g. neighborhood resources, educational environments) and individual characteristics (e.g., prior behavioral concerns, socioeconomic characteristics), (2) Assess the role of early adversity in shaping the associations between school discipline and adolescent health outcomes; and (3) Evaluate the interactive effects of neurobiological functioning and early adversity on the associations between school discipline and youth health outcomes. Findings from this work will contribute to a broader understanding of how modifiable school-related risk factors, such as school discipline, and contextual experiences influence adolescent health. This award will support training in developmental neuroscience, advanced statistical modeling, and the integration of schoolbased influences on adolescent development. The proposed research builds on prior training in clinical and developmental psychology and will support the establishment of an independent research program focused on promoting adolescent health and well-being through modifiable educational experiences.

• Racial disparities in school discipline: Examining the complex interactions between neurobiological, environmental, and school-based determinants of health within the ABCD Study

  5K01MD018069-03

  NIMHD · FY 2024 · $112K

  Project Summary/Abstract Educational attainment is a health disparities issue. School dropout is one of the strongest predictors of health disparities across the lifespan, and improving educational outcomes has the potential to save eight times more lives than medical advances. Dropping out of school is the culmination of a longer process of school disengagement that starts much earlier in development. Fortunately, school disengagement is a modifiable health determinant. However, a clearer understanding of the complex interactions among multiple, upstream risk factors for school disengagement is needed to guide the development and evaluation of school-based programming aimed at reducing distal health disparities. Exclusionary disciplinary practices (EDPs) in schools, such as detentions and suspensions, are consistently associated with school disengagement. They are also disproportionately used against students of color, which may lead to perceived discrimination and further school disengagement, underscoring the notion that EDPs can be a form of race-based trauma. Due to structural and institutional inequities, minority youth are also at increased risk for experiencing childhood adversity, and mounting evidence suggests that experiencing childhood adversity lowers tolerance to coping with later stressors. Thus, experiencing an EDP may be particularly harmful among minority youth previously exposed to childhood adversity. Neurobiological functioning associated with childhood adversity may partially explain this process. Guided by theories of neurobiological and minority stress, the specific research aims of the proposed project include: 1) Determining whether discrimination mediates the associations between EDPs and school disengagement; 2) Examining whether childhood adversity moderates the associations between EDPs, discrimination, and school disengagement; 3) Examining whether neurobiological factors associated with childhood adversity moderate the associations between EDPs, discrimination, and school disengagement; and 4) Exploring how COVID-19 and remote-learning environments influenced the associations between EDPs, discrimination, and school disengagement. This K01 proposal will be achieved by leveraging data from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, a ten-year longitudinal study examining brain development and child health among 11,878 youth within the United States. To build upon my expertise in developmental psychopathology, I require advanced training in (1) neurobiological sciences applied to childhood adversity; (2) quantitative analyses related to longitudinal, finite mixture modeling; (3) school-based determinants of health and their associations with minority health and health disparities; (4) addressing social and structural inequities within clinical, research, and academic settings; and (5) achieving scientific independence as a health-disparities researcher. This project complements my previous training as a clinical psychologist and will enable me to pursue a future line of independent, health disparities research using a neurobiological, trauma-informed, school-based framework.