Behavioral, social and mental health
Empowering growth, resilience, and healing
An individual’s well-being and behaviors affect their family, and vice versa. On a larger scale, individuals and families influence a community’s ability to thrive—and a safe, resilient community provides more opportunities for its members.
UT faculty collaborate with partners in labs, clinics, schools, and community centers to address real needs. They seek to empower individuals, families, and populations to manage stress and mental disorders, prevent addiction, heal after trauma, and cultivate healthy relationships.
UT’s Approach
UT research spans the translational spectrum. Faculty study underlying factors influencing mental, behavioral, and social health and development, from molecular mechanisms outward and prenatal influences onward.
Together, faculty and students develop innovative ways to diagnose and treat conditions, evaluate interventions to promote wellness, and prevent disorders. Interventions take many forms, from exercise programs to text-delivered peer network counseling. Researchers seek to understand the most effective ways to help patients, families, and caregivers across socioeconomic and geographical contexts.
UT researchers deliver evidence-based practices through Extension programming and partnerships with community organizations to improve family relationships, boost emotional wellness, support child and youth development, and promote healing following trauma and disaster.
UT also manages the East Tennessee Rural Health Consortium. Working with faith-based organizations, schools, medical providers, pharmacists, and other consortium members, UT faculty develop and implement resources for youth education, professional development, mentoring, and other initiatives to prevent opioid use disorder, improve patient care, and train community leaders.
“Through UT Extension, we translate science and strategies we know work into programs adapted for local communities. Specifically, I work with rural communities to address the root causes of stress. I think about all the different pieces of the puzzle: How does the resilience of an individual affect their family, workplace, even their community’s economy, and vice versa?”
— Heather Sedges, Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences, UT Extension
Highlights
Facilities & Initiatives
These facilities and initiatives reflect the translational spectrum of our work, from basic research to clinical studies to outreach every day in communities across Tennessee.
- Center for Behavioral Health Research
- Center for the Study of Family Health and Well-being
- East TN Rural Health Consortium
- NeuroNET
- Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships
- Research and Education Aligned for Clinical and Community Health
- Social Work Office of Research & Public Service
- Substance Misuse and Addiction Resource for Tennessee
- UT Extension
Researchers
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Research Professor, Large Animal Clinical Sciences
Animal models of diseases, cell biology, stem cell biology, guidance of stem cell biology by biomimetic biomaterials, applications in veterinary medicine, translation into human medicine, regenerative medicine, mesenchymal stem cell biology, extracellular matrix proteins, carbon nanoparticles, animal models, veterinary medicine, human medicine, translation research
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Assistant Professor, Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science
Environmental informatics, artificial intelligence, water quality, water quantity, flooding, agricultural health, ecological health, natural resource management, water pollution, sustainable agriculture, environmental risk, food-energy-water nexus, machine learning modeling, environmental data science
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Professor, School of Natural Resources and Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences
One Health, food/nutrition insecurity, loss of biodiversity, climate change impacts, impacts of anthropogenic stressors, wildlife, pathology, conservation, amphibians, sea turtles
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Professor and Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Veterinary Medicine
Health disparities, spatial epidemiology, geographic information systems, health geography, population health, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, antimicrobial resistance, public health, social determinants of health