The University of Washington Population Health Initiative awarded nine Tier 1 pilot grants in spring 2023 to interdisciplinary teams completing exploratory research across multiple areas. These teams represented 10 of the UW’s schools and colleges, with projects reaching their respective midpoints and reporting progress across diverse behavioral health domains.
One project examining abortion misinformation interviewed 14 healthcare providers and advocates between October 2023 and January 2024 through the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) medical region and neighboring Oregon. Investigators found that healthcare providers see online sources as a major vector of abortion healthcare-related myths, but practitioners do not feel confident they are aware of the full scope of abortion-related myths circulating in their state. Researchers noted that stigma around abortion itself, around certain providers and organizations like Planned Parenthood, and even stigma within medical institutions stifled the ability of practitioners to have open conversations with patients that could surface misconceptions.
Another study examining violence exposure in children completed interviews with 35 pediatric healthcare providers across Washington state, including pediatricians, community health workers, and social workers. Preliminary findings identified common facilitators and barriers to health-related social needs assessments, primarily time and personnel constraints, the complexity of family needs, and the lack of adequate referral resources.
A qualitative study on trans people’s experiences with bureaucracy recruited and trained an all-trans advisory board and completed 43 hour-long interviews with trans adults. One key finding showed that trans people are acutely aware of how street-level bureaucrats gatekeep needed services, with many participants willing to experience stress and stigma to access services like SNAP, Medicaid, and Unemployment Insurance as a necessity for their overall wellbeing. Research examining schizophrenia risk in diverse youth used data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study with a final sample of 5,636 European, 2,093 African, and 1,477 Admixed American ancestry individuals.
A drone technology pilot study assessed the ability of remotely piloted drones to detect harmful algal blooms in freshwater lakes. Between July and October 2023, researchers conducted 26 unique drone flights and collected 28 water samples over seven sampling events, finding the Color Index of Vegetation Extraction index provided the best estimates for chlorophyll a variation (R2 = 0.45, p < 0.001).
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.washington.edu/populationhealth/2026/05/20/spring-2023-tier-1-pilot-awardees-report-final-findings-from-funded-projects/