Session: Getting Under the Skin: Leveraging Physiological Data in Preventive Interventions (Society for Prevention Research 27th Annual Meeting)

The emergence of increasingly affordable and accurate mobile technologies to assess indicators of physiological responsiveness holds great promise for improving the study, and ultimately the delivery, of preventive interventions. These indicators may be useful for testing theories of change, measuring processes related to intervention impact, and understanding differential intervention effects across subgroups. Yet there remains much to learn in leveraging this form of “big data” to inform preventive interventions. Likewise, the measurement of these constructs, which were largely created for use in small-sample laboratory studies, in the context of large-scale intervention studies in real world settings presents challenges for the processing and management of a potentially massive amount of data. This panel will present three original studies, all based on the Coping Power preventive intervention (Lochman & Wells, 2004) for aggressive youth. All three studies have uniquely leveraged these data to better understand the potential role of these biomarkers or physiological indicators in evaluating preventive interventions.

The first paper draws upon data from 102 youth participating in an evaluation of a Coping Power adaptation that includes a mindfulness component. Physiological indicators of stress include respiratory sinus arrhythmia and skin conductance. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention, with the primary question of interest being whether there is a treatment impact on these outcomes of interest.

The second paper reports long-term outcomes of a group- vs individual intervention delivery format and explores the potential for baseline emotion regulation (measured through skin conductance reactivity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia) to moderate the relative impact of each treatment arm. These findings have implications for improving a match between individuals and intervention formats.

The final paper presents data from 152 seventh graders participating in group Coping Power, and examines self-reported youth engagement in relation to patterns of heart rate and heart rate variability. Both full session metrics and time series data within sessions are examined. Findings suggest that whether and how heart rate data serves as an indicator of engagement requires a consideration of the hypothesized impact of individual session components.

Common themes and findings related to conceptualization, measurement, and modeling of these complex data structures will be highlighted by a senior prevention scientist with expertise in small sample designs and physiological data. Areas for future research and implications for leveraging this form of big data in preventive interventions will be discussed.