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Natalie Johnson

Department of Clinical Research
Profiles & Affiliations

Community-based interventions for mental and environmental health

I am interested in simple, scalable, community-based mental health interventions to foster resilience among youth. I am also interested in exploring the potential of mindful experiences with nature to foster connectedness to oneself and the environment. I would like to design and test an intervention which incorporates tactile experiences with nature for mental health and pro-environmental behavior.

Selected Publications

Jakobsson, C. E., Johnson, N. E., Ochuku, B., Baseke, R., Wong, E., Musyimi, C. W., Ndetei, D. M., & Venturo-Conerly, K. E. (2024). Meta-Analysis: Prevalence of Youth Mental Disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa [Journal-article]. Global Mental Health, 11. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2024.82

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Johnson, Natalie E., Venturo-Conerly, Katherine E., & Rusch, Thomas. (2023). Using wearable activity trackers for research in the global south: Lessons learned from adolescent psychotherapy research in Kenya [Journal-article]. Global Mental Health, 10. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2023.85

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Johnson, Natalie E., Nerima, Daisy, Kahura, Ngina, & Osborn, Tom L. (2023). Psychometric properties of the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II among Kenyan adolescents [Journal-article]. Frontiers in Sociology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1189915

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Ochuku, B. K., Johnson, N. E., Osborn, T. L., Wasanga, C. M., & Ndetei, D. M. (2022). Centering decriminalization of suicide in low – and middle – income countries on effective suicide prevention strategies. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1034206

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Selected Projects & Collaborations

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PEGISUS: Peer Education for Gender Inclusion and Substance Use in Southern Africa

Research Project  | 5 Project Members

Adolescents and young adults in sub-Saharan Africa are facing increasing threats to health and overall quality of life.This project seeks to address adolescent and young adult well-being by simultaneously tackling alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, inequitable gender beliefs, and high rates of unemployment in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Specifically, this project aims to develop and test a brief, behavioral intervention to reduce problem AOD use and gender inequitable beliefs, which will be delivered to adolescent and young adult peer groups and embedded within existing vocational training programs. The study will also assess vocational training program characteristics that may facilitate or hinder scaling up of the proposed intervention, should it be successful. This study is conducted in collaboration with the University of Zambia, SolidarMed Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the South African Medical Research Council. The study is funded through the Solution-oriented Research for Development Programme, which is jointly funded by SNSF and SDC (Grant no. 400440_213259).