Center Advisors, Treatment Development & Evaluation Core
Maureen A. Walton, MPH, PhD
Maureen A. Walton, MPH, PhD
Professor and Associate Chair for Research and Research Faculty Development in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan (UM); Senior Associate Director at the UM Injury Prevention Center; Associate Chair for Child Research at the UM Addiction Center
Maureen Walton’s research focuses on prevention and early interventions to reduce substance use, violence, and injury, particularly among adolescents and young adults. She is a community psychologist and has expertise in harnessing technology (e.g., web, text messaging, social media, smartphone apps) for assessment and intervention delivery. She has worked with colleagues to develop evidenced-based single session interventions to reduce violence (e.g., SafERteens) and/or substance use (e.g., alcohol, cannabis, prescription drug misuse) among patients in medical settings. Recent lines of work focus on optimizing interventions, including testing combinations of telehealth and technology-delivered interventions for opioid misuse. She is also testing adaptive interventions for violence and alcohol misuse using a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Controlled Trial (SMART) design. Finally, she collaborates with teams examining mobile health for assessment and intervention delivery, including conducting micro-randomized trials.
In her free time, she enjoys travel and reading.
Selected Publications
- Nahum-Shani I, Yap J, Kotov M, Klasjna P, Bonar EE, Cunningham RM, Murphy SA, Walton MA. Translating strategies for promoting engagement in mobile health: A micro-randomized feasibility trial. Health Psychology.
- Czyz EK, King CA, Prouty D, Micol VJ, Walton MA, Nahum-Shani I. Adaptive intervention for prevention of adolescent suicidal behavior after hospitalization: A pilot sequential multiple assignment randomized trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
- Coughlin LN, Nahum-Shani I, Philyaw-Kotov ML, Bonar EE, Rabbi M, Klasnja P, Murphy S, Walton MA. Developing an adaptive mobile intervention to address risky substance use among adolescents and emerging adults: Usability study. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2021 Jan 15;9(1):e24424. doi: 10.2196/24424. PMID: 33448931; PMCID: PMC7846447. View Source
- Bonar EE, Coughlin L, Roche JS, Philyaw-Kotov ML, Bixler EA, Sinelnikov S, Kolosh A, Cihak MJ, Cunningham RM, Walton MA. Prescription opioid misuse among adolescents and emerging adults in the United States: A scoping review. Prev Med. 2020 Mar;132:105972. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2019.105972. PMID: 31904397; PMCID: PMC7024638. View Source
- Cunningham RM, Walton MA, Carter PM. The major causes of death in children and adolescents in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2018 Dec 20;379(25):2468-2475. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsr1804754. PMID: 30575483; PMCID: PMC6637963. View Source
- Cunningham RM, Chermack ST, Ehrlich PF, Carter PM, Booth BM, Blow FC, Barry KL, Walton MA. Alcohol interventions among underage drinkers in the ED: A randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics. 2015 Oct;136(4):e783-93. doi: 10.1542/peds.2015-1260. PMID: 26347440; PMCID: PMC4586730. View Source
- Walton MA, Resko S, Barry KL, Chermack ST, Zucker RA, Zimmerman MA, Booth BM, Blow FC. A randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of a brief cannabis universal prevention program among adolescents in primary care. Addiction. 2014 May;109(5):786-97. doi: 10.1111/add.12469. PMID: 24372937; PMCID: PMC3984620. View Source
- Walton MA, Chermack ST, Shope JT, Bingham CR, Zimmerman MA, Blow FC, Cunningham RM. Effects of a brief intervention for reducing violence and alcohol misuse among adolescents: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2010 Aug 4;304(5):527-35. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.1066. PMID: 20682932; PMCID: PMC3560393. View Source