projects
current projects
upstanding for promotion-prevention
2017 - present
In collaboration with Sandy Hook Promise, our nonprofit team implemented the Say Something program and our UPP program to promote peace and prevent bullying in an Ohio high school. Jordan Booker (University of Missouri), Amanda Nickerson (University at Buffalo), Promote Care & Prevent Harm advisors, and I are preparing manuscripts on the UPP model (McCarty et al., 2022), UPP program (McCarty et al., 2021), and an evaluation of an integrated promotion and prevention bystander approach (Booker et al., 2024).
moral reckoning on structural racism
2021 - present
Megan Liskey, Deepu George (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and I describe a pathway toward a moral reckoning on structural racism (McCarty et al., 2023). We plan to conduct a scoping review of structural thinking, structural competency, and structurally-relevant mindsets related to a structural understanding of racism.
commercial determinants of mental health
2022 - present
Gary Giovino, Cole Cooper, Reagan Miller, Chelsea Green, Lisa Cosgrove, and I are applying the commercial determinants of health (CDoH) framework to population mental health. We aim to explore how commercial influences affect the incidence of mental distress, diagnosis of mental disorders, and mental health interventions.
prior projects
youth-led resilience promotion
2012 - 2021
To increase resilience during COVID-19 recovery, we wrote about how youth leaders in high school can promote resilience with Alyssa Gatto (Virginia Tech) and Ruby Charak (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) (McCarty, Pacque, Gatto, Hill & Charak, 2021). I delivered the opening presentation on youth-led resilience at the 2021 Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators (OASSA) school safety conference. Intervention materials are publicly available for schools and community-based nonprofits to apply the framework and adopt the program (https://osf.io/txcb6).
mental health clubs in high schools
2017 - 2022
Our nonprofit team consulted with Our Minds Matter (OMM) to redesign their mental health curriculum and improve their youth-led club model (to more effectively promote mental wellness) in Fairfax County Public Schools (VA). With colleagues, I conducted research on OMM leaders’ prosocial behavior and conducted a simple program evaluation using transparent methods in RMarkdown (see McCarty & Burns, 2020; McCarty & Gatto, 2020). Now, we are currently exploring individual health behavior change strategies (e.g., sleep hygiene practices as a depression prevention strategy), the influence of political ideology and mental health conceptions (e.g., as wellness or psychopathology), and how to build effective school-wide mental health campaigns.
contain the contagion to prevent COVID-19
2020
With community activists, our team launched the Contagion the Contagion campaign to spread public health information to community members in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) through an op-ed in March 2020 (Gonzalez, McCarty, Diaz, Garcia, Palacios, Martinez, Fuentes, Salas, Altamirano, Díaz-Santana & Prado, 2020). From March to June 2020, we reached 28,000+ South Texans through volunteer-led efforts to phone and text bank.
covid-19 safety corps
2020
To engage youth as leaders during the pandemic, Natalie Cook (Virginia Tech) and I involved students in the design of new virtual curriculum: the COVID-19 Safety Corps (based loosely on Michigan’s Urban Safety Corps). With Virginia Tech PRISM, we taught two cohorts of high school and college students the basics of promotion-prevention science and social media campaign development. Students from South Texas, Central Ohio, and Northern Virginia developed social media campaigns on mental health.
team-based medicine
2018 - 2020
To support integrated behavioral health (IBH) within UTRGV-affiliated primary care clinics on the US-MX border, I developed and implemented a team-based curriculum on mindsets for medical residents and mental health providers to work more collaboratively and share power. As part of a HRSA (HHS) grant, I co-led focus groups on wellness and resilience with medical learners during the pandemic with the goal of improving programs through (top-down) policy change and (bottom-up) student-led well-being committees (McCarty, Arellano, Garcia, Hernandez, & George, 2020).
youth participatory action research
2018
With funding from the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), Nikki Turgeon-Williams and I co-created a 4-week youth-led analytics course for AP Psychology students using a participatory action research approach, open and transparent research guidelines, and relevant models to guide their research studies (on social media, technology, character, mental health, and school climate) after they took their AP exam (see course materials: McCarty, Turgeon-Williams & Pacqué, 2018).
youth-led promotion & prevention
2016 - 2019
With support from community-based partners, our nonprofit team developed and delivered elements of the youth-led promotion and prevention (YL2P) program in 11 high schools across Ohio to address the protective and risk factors associated with mental health, substance use, bullying, and related social problems. The interactive workshop engages teams of students to address the promoting pathway or protecting pathway (Kia-Keating et al., 2011). In a Virginia high school, we piloted the program in an elective leadership course with students in the student government.
school-based policing
2015 - 2018
With funding from the COPS Office, Sociologist and Curriculum Development Expert Jennifer Panagopoulos and I co-developed an in-person and e-learning course for school-based law enforcement (SRO, SSO) and educators on school climate. We co-facilitated a curriculum review session with the leadership of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO). With two different NASRO trainers, I co-trained SROs, SSOs, and educators in three Maryland school districts, including Baltimore City Public Schools. Modules from the curriculum were incorporated into the 40-hr, state-mandated SRO program by the Maryland Center for School Safety. We received another COPS grant to convert the curriculum to an e-learning course (see course on the COPS training portal: Panagopoulos & McCarty, 2020).
actively caring for people in schools
2009 - 2014
In the Center for Applied Behavior Systems at VT, we developed promotion programs to increase the recognition and rewarding of prosocial behavior in a college residence hall (McCarty, Mullins, Geller & Shushok, 2013), designed and evaluated a prosocial promotion and bullying prevention program for elementary school students (McCarty, Teie, McCutchen & Geller, 2016), designed and evaluated a helping promotion and aggressing/bullying prevention program for middle school students using group incentives for prosocial behavior and lessons on character strengths (McCarty, 2014), and developed a youth-led resilience promotion program after a school shooting (McCarty, Pacque, Gatto, Hill & Charak, 2021; Teie, McCarty & Cea, 2013).