Researcher | Research Overview
Dr. Lydia Shrier's research focuses on the links between mental health and risk behavior in adolescents and young adults. Dr. Shrier has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and other sources to conduct research using momentary assessment methods with mobile devices to study emotional states, social contexts, and health behaviors in vivo. Based on this work, Dr. Shrier and her collaborators have developed interventions to reduce risk behaviors that combine counseling with mobile momentary intervention, including MOMENT to reduce cannabis use in adolescents and young adults who use frequently, and MARSSI to reduce risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection among young women with depression.
Dr. Shrier and her collaborators also created the Safer Sex Intervention (SSI), a theory-based individualized intervention to reduce sexual risk behaviors in high-risk adolescent girls. The Safer Sex Intervention is included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Compendium of Evidence-Based HIV Prevention Interventions and the Department of Health and Human Services Teen Pregnancy Prevention Evidence Review. Multiple sites across the U.S. have conducted SSI replications. An independent randomized controlled trial in three replication sites (>1800 adolescent girls) found long-term positive effects of SSI.
Dr. Shrier has collaborated with several leading researchers to advance screening, intervention, and clinician education related to adolescent substance use. She collaborated with Dr. John Knight on the development of the widely-used CRAFFT screen for problem substance use in adolescents. With Dr. Sharon Levy, Dr. Shrier co-developed the S2BI screen for adolescent substance use. Dr. Shrier is co-investigator with Dr. Sion Harris on two NIH funded studies, a randomized controlled trial of the computer-facilitated Screening and clinician Brief Intervention system for primary care, and a project to integrate the computerized Screening and provider Brief Advice system for adolescent substance use and the CHADIS online clinical process support system for pediatric primary care.
Researcher | Research Background
Lydia Shrier received an MD with Distinction in Research from Albany Medical School. She completed internship and residency in Pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital and a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. She received an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Shrier has been recognized for her scholarly work, leadership, mentorship, and excellence in clinical care through numerous awards and honors and is a Fellow of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. She serves as Chair of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study Section CHHD-M Health, Behavior and Context Subcommittee. Dr. Shrier is Director of Research for the Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.