2024 APNA Award for Excellence in Research & Scholarship

Jamie Zelazny, PhD, MPH, RN

Nominated by Karen Jennings Mathis, PhD, APRN, PMHNP-BC, FAED

Saving the lives of young people is what motivates Jamie Zelazny to dedicate her research toward uncovering new methods of suicide prevention. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among this group, with rates that have tripled over the past 2 decades.

“Research is vital to find the gaps in the literature and identify new practices that improve patient treatment and outcomes,” says Jamie. “My work is specifically focused on leveraging technology to identify evidence-based methods to prevent suicide and promote mental health among children and adolescents.”

Her desire to make a positive impact in pediatric mental health started early in her undergraduate nursing program at The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) School of Nursing during a clinical rotation. Jamie’s talent for research eventually expanded to full-time suicide prevention work. Today, she is principal investigator (PI) of two and co-PI of one National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grants and co-investigator on three NIMH grants – all focused on the use of technology to help identify and manage youth suicide risk.

With NIMH funding, Jamie leads an R21 study, “SMART: Social Media as a Predictor of Proximal Risk in Youth Suicide Attempts”, which explores social media as a risk factor for youth suicide, particularly in marginalized groups. The SMART study aims to compare youth with suicide attempts to an equal number of control participants with no history of suicide attempt, while comparing traditional suicide risk factors as well as both objective and subjective reports of social media risk factors – for example, how much and how often is the young person using social media and how does social media impact them. The study collects youth social media data and leverages algorithms built by her collaborating team of computer scientists at Georgia Tech to analyze the objective social media data in combination with the clinical and subjective social media data collected by Jamie’s team.

Jamie also serves as principal investigator for an R34 treatment development study, which is part of the Enhancing Triage and Utilization for Depression and Emergent Suicidality (ETUDES) Center, a Center of Excellence (P50) grant funded by the NIMH and is a partnership between the University of Pittsburgh and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “GET ActivE” is assessing a culturally-specific mobile intervention and treatment technique that tackles anhedonia and suicidal behavior. This study uses a mobile sensing app developed by Ksana Health to collect passive data from participants – activity, sleep, mobile phone use, etc. Participants answer one mood-related question daily to help determine the patterns between their physical activities that day and the answer to the daily mood question. Information collected informs behavior activation – a type of therapy that helps those with depression understand what activities work to improve their mood and what makes their mood worse. Participants work with a health coach, who has access to the activity data and helps set goals to increase the use of activities shown to improve mood.

She explains, “GET ActivE is an ongoing pilot study currently in the open trial-phase, which will inform a randomized controlled trial set to begin in November 2024. We are looking to recruit Black and Hispanic youth participants, as those populations have more barriers to traditional mental health treatment.”

In a third study, also being conducted through the ETUDES Center, Jamie and her team are investigating the efficacy of collecting and analyzing both social media data and mobile sensing activity data in young people using the novel methods described above. For the first time, this study seeks to combine those two sets of data together to determine if they are complementary or if one data source is more predictive than the other.

While media coverage often vilifies the use of social media among young people, Jamie explains, “there are groups of kids who benefit from the support they receive through social media. One example – LGBTQ+ kids in more rural areas are able to access support and interact with others like themselves.

Kids will always find a way to use social media, so we need to help them navigate it. In my work, I’m consistently looking to harness the positive aspects of social media and limit the negative.”

Currently, Jamie is seeking to advance ethical guidelines and the protection of human subjects in research involving technology. In collaboration with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Jamie conducted 2 pilot studies examining ethical issues and using Human Centered Design for the implementation of a new suicide risk prediction algorithm. She is also co-developer of a supportive safety plan phone application for patients with high levels of suicidal ideation or recent suicidal behavior, and a co-author of the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS).

Jamie has 39 peer-reviewed publications and is an active contributor to APNA – frequently presenting at the APNA Annual Conference. She also serves as Chair of the APNA Child and Adolescent Council, Chair of the APNA Youth Suicide Prevention Position Paper Workgroup, on the Steering Committee of the APNA Research & Scholarship Council, on the APNA Research Grant Review Committee, the APNA Scholarly Review Committee, the APNA Awards and Recognition Committee, and as an APNA Annual Conference Poster Judge. Jamie also serves as Vice Chair at the University of Pittsburgh Institutional Review Board. Jamie’s community service is also heavily focused on suicide prevention, and she serves on the Board of Directors and Education Chair for the Western PA Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which she describes as very rewarding.

While her main focus is research at Pitt, Jamie also teaches the undergraduate course Nursing Care of Clients with Psychiatric Mental Health Problems. During interactions with students, she encourages them to keep research in the mix as they carve out their career path. “We’re working to break down the barriers to entry students may have toward PMH nursing research. Helping students understand you can have the best of both worlds – you can stay connected to clinical work and at the same time make meaningful contributions to the future of patient treatment.”