Health and Justice Lab

The mission of the Health and Justice Lab is to improve how health and justice systems respond to the needs of children, adolescents and other vulnerable populations. Through partnerships across the state of Indiana, the lab develops and implements evidence-based interventions to improve the lives of children, adolescents and vulnerable populations. Our team does this work through impactful community and system partnerships.

Programs and Projects

Pediatric Integrated Behavioral Health Program

The Pediatric Integrated Behavioral Health program (Peds-IBH) is designed to address the growing pediatric mental health crisis in Indiana by catching and treating mental and behavioral health concerns before they reach crisis levels. In conjunction with IU Health, this program has been implemented in 27 IU Health primary care clinics throughout the state, and is scheduled to expand to an additional 30+ sites in 2026 to comprehensively cover the IU Health and Riley Children's Health primary care system. The goal is to improve mental health screening and treat detected mental health concerns in a primary care setting while maintaining a referral pathway for more complex mental health cases.

The Kiddie Computer Adaptive Test (K-CAT) is a validated mental health screening tool for children ages 7–17 that utilizes both child and caregiver input to estimate the likelihood of the child’s mental health and substance use disorder diagnoses.

F.I.R.S.T. is a transdiagnostic treatment approach which builds on five core principles found in evidence-based treatment for internalizing and externalizing problems in treatment of youth with mild-moderate: anxiety, depression and/or conduct problems. FIRST is an acronym that stands for Feeling calm, Increasing motivation, Repairing thoughts, Solving problems and Trying the opposite. FIRST is applicable for those as young as 5 years old. FIRST is an evidence-based, transdiagnostic treatment approach for youth with mild to moderate anxiety, depression and/or misbehavior problems.

FORTRESS

FORTRESS seeks to address the overdose epidemic by working with county level overdose fatality review (OFR) teams. The goal of FORTRESS is to improve standard OFR practices by equipping them with a data dashboard built on real-time population level aggregate data, record-linked across multiple sources and presented in a way that helps identify and visualize common “overdose touchpoints,” or opportunities to deliver harm-reduction services or engage individuals at risk for overdose in evidence-based treatment. We will also be training key OFR team members in data-driven decision-making principles that can be applied to the OFR team setting to supplement the use of the data dashboard tool.

Trafficking

The Human Trafficking Response grant between Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA), Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) and Indiana University (Matthew Aalsma, PhD) aims to strengthen Indiana’s human trafficking response.

Utilizing the expertise of Judge Dowling, Indiana DCS and Indiana Trafficking Victims Assistance Program (ITVAP), Dr. Aalsma and his team reviewed Indiana’s current trafficking screening, treatment and resources. Through the review, the research team developed a trafficking curriculum used to train many in Indiana judicial system (judges, magistrates, correctional officers, etc.).

This project is multifaceted, looking to address Indiana's rise in human trafficking via multiple approaches.

The first part of this project is addressing the treatment barrier in trafficked youth. To help with this, we will utilize an expert consultant in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and hold a two day in-person training on the IU School of Medicine—Indianapolis campus for therapists trained in TF-CBT to better enhance their trafficking treatment skills.
In addition to training TF-CBT therapists across Indiana, Dr. Aalsma is piloting a referral and treatment pathway for trafficked youth in two counties in the state of Indiana (Allen and Elkhart).
Lastly, to better understand how to increase awareness, detection and treatment we are utilizing national experts in the field of trafficking and juvenile justice. Acquiring their knowledge through surveys and focus groups.

e-Connect

e-Connect is a single, integrated system that enables real-time identification of youth needs and targeted, county-specific referral and linkage of those at various levels of risk for suicidal behavior. The implementation of a self-administered, evidence-based screen on a tablet allows probation staff to quickly identify youth in crisis and connect them with needed services. The aims of the project include examining if it improves justice-involved youth behavioral health service use, improves probation officer practice outcomes, reduces health disparities and compares the implementation of e-Connect to the established model. The IU School of Medicine research team will train and support local facilitators in nine Indiana counties to ensure the successful transfer of knowledge and skill in delivering e-Connect to new systems and geographic contexts, utilizing implementation strategies to support more widespread, sustained and rigorous adoption of e-Connect.

Youth Justice Oversight Committee

This project is focused on improving how Indiana collects and uses juvenile justice data to better understand and support youth involved in the justice system. Working in partnership with the Indiana Office of Judicial Administration, the Youth Justice Oversight Committee and IU School of Medicine, the project examines how counties currently collect information and identifies ways to make data more accurate, consistent and useful statewide. By improving data collection and reporting practices, the project will help state and local leaders make more informed decisions about programs, services and policies that affect young people and their families. The long-term goal is to create a more transparent, fair and effective juvenile justice system across Indiana.

Past Projects

Alliances to Disseminate Addiction Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT): A Statewide Learning Health System to Reduce Substance Use among Justice-Involved Youth in Rural Communities. The primary goal of ADAPT is to address barriers to justice-involved youth achieving the substance use disorder care continuum (i.e., referral to treatment, treatment initiation, and engagement) as identified by the Substance Use Disorder Care Cascade. We will accomplish our goal by creating alliances between the juvenile justice system and community mental health centers in 10 rural Indiana counties.

Research Team

Principal Investigator

Matthew C. Aalsma, PhD

Jonathan and Jennifer Simmons Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Aalsma is the Johnathan & Jennifer Simmons Professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He is director of the Child Health Services Research Division and the Adolescent Behavioral Health Research Program. Trained as a juvenile forensic psychologist, Dr. Aalsma has focused his research on improving outcomes among vulnerable populations, including youth in the behavioral health and carceral systems. He has authored nearly 150 publications related to the health and well-being of youth, produced through 20 years of continuous extramural research funding (e.g. NIH, AHRQ, HRSA).

Read Bio

Johnathan Oliver

Program Manager

Johnathan serves as Program Manager for the Health and Justice Lab, overseeing operations and supporting the lab’s research programs and staff. Originally from rural southern Indiana, he earned a B.S. in Neuroscience from Indiana University Bloomington and an M.S. in Biology from IUPUI before transitioning to a full-time research career in 2020. He is passionate about improving outcomes for vulnerable youth and families and is proud to contribute to research that advances effective interventions and positive change. Outside of work, Johnathan enjoys spending time with his wife and two sons, Jack and Ari, following Indiana sports, and spending time on the water.

Elizabeth Hutson

Peds-IBH Research Project Manager

Elizabeth Hutson is an Indiana native. She graduated from Indiana University Bloomington in 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a certificate in clinical psychological science. She has been involved in pediatric research since 2017 at Indiana University Bloomington (Department of Psychology), Washington University School of Medicine (Early Emotional Development Program,) and now Indiana University School of Medicine (Children's Health Services Research). Elizabeth has a passion for translational research and implementation science — she is fueled by doing work that directly impacts the lives and health of Hoosier children and families. She is also involved in the Indianapolis theatre community — she has been performing in Indianapolis for over a decade.

Melvin Wao

Clinical Research Specialist

Melvin Wao is a clinical research specialist in the Aalsma Lab at the IU School of Medicine. She is originally from Kenya and raised in Florida. She holds a bachelor’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics from United States International University – Africa in 2022. Melvin has contributed to several of Dr. Aalsma’s research projects, with a primary focus on the e-Connect project, which links juvenile justice systems with community mental health providers to improve youth access to suicide and mental health services. She is currently completing her Master of Public Health with a concentration in public health informatics and is passionate about combining data analytics and health services research to improve mental health access and utilization for vulnerable youth and young adults.

Alec Glazier

Program Management Assistant

Alec Glazier is a program management assistant in the Division of Children's Health Services Research, Department of Pediatrics. He has been involved in research in the health sciences since 2021, graduating with a BA in anthropology in 2023. He contributes to several of Dr. Aalsma's projects, especially around qualitative data collection and analysis as well as fidelity monitoring. Alec is enthusiastic about research in the Health and Justice Lab and is highly motivated by its potential to quickly improve health outcomes among youth in Indiana.

How can I get involved with the Health and Justice Lab?

Open opportunities:

Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatrics
Assistant Research Professor of Pediatrics
Program Management Specialist — Coming Soon!
Internships:
- IMPRS
- Summer Students — If interested, please send us an email!

Publications

Bell LA, Kirkpatrick L, French J, Hadland S, Aalsma M.C. (2023, March) Denial and Self-Management: How Adolescents and Young Adults Initiate, Escalate, Problematize, and Contemplate Disclosure and Treatment of Opioid Use. Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine National Meeting. Chicago, IL.
Patrick, E., Schwartz, K.A., Ouyang, F., Burrell, M. & Aalsma, M.C. (2022, March) Alliances to Disseminate Addiction Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT): Assessing the exchange of ideas in alliances between juvenile justice and community mental health centers. Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM), San Diego, CA.
MacBrayer, K., Keys, J.S., Whitener, M.P. & Aalsma, M.C. (2022, March) “Just as Expensive as Sending Him to College:” Barriers and perceptions of treatment in justice-involved youth. Abstract accepted for poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM), San Diego, CA.
Johnson-Kwochka, A., Pederson, C. A., Monahan, P.O., & Aalsma, M.C. (2022, March). Predictors of diversion from the criminal justice system among first time juvenile offenders. Abstract accepted for oral platform presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM), San Diego, CA.

Overdose Lifeline team members work together at a round table

Matt Aalsma giving a presentation in front of a room of people

Elizabeth Hutson holds an award and smiles at the camera

Nearly 30 members of the overdose lifeline team in a large group photo

Contact Us

To learn more, connect with project managers of each focus area or contribute to the Health and Justice Lab, please contact:

Johnathan Oliver, MS, CCRP
Research Program Manager
Children’s Health Services Research

Email Johnathan Oliver