Overview of IMPACT Lab Projects

What We’ve Been Working on Lately:

1. Meta-Analyses

In 2024-2025, we have primarily been focusing on a few meta-analyses, including:

The Impact of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and Interpersonal Counseling (IPC) on College Student Wellbeing: Systematic Review and 3-Level Meta-Analysis
- Co-authored by graduate students Kirby Knapp, Sarah Broner, and Maya Hareli
- As of February 2025, we are completing our coding and aiming to analyze and write up the results to submit in 2025.
The Impact of Mobile Technology-Delivered Interventions on Youth Well-Being: Systematic Review and Three-Level Meta-Analysis
- The first version of this paper, co-authored by Maya Hareli and Sarah Broner, was published in 2022
- We are updating our sample, adding Ellie Malone, with the goal of submitting in 2025.
Eating Disorder Treatment Programs Compared to Controls for Adolescents and Young Adults: Systematic Review and Three-Level Meta-Analyses
- First-authored by Sarah Broner and Alex Kirsch, IMPACT Lab Grads/alumni
- Submitted January 2025 to Eating Behaviors.

2. Interpersonal Psychotherapy for College Students (IPT-CS)

In 2022, we developed and piloted a novel intervention, Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) for College Students (IPT-CS). The feasibility and effectiveness results of this initial trial were recently published (Conley, Broner, Hareli et al., 2024), and we are currently coding and analyzing qualitative data from session transcripts.

We are also forming collaborations with campus partners to tailor IPT-CS to specific students’ identities and experiences, including:

students of color
LGBTQIA+ students
student athletes

In the coming years, we hope to scale up this work, with contributions from graduate students who serve both as research assistants and group facilitators.

3. Other Intervention Evaluation

We are also continuing to work on data analysis, writeup, and dissemination from a series of interventions our lab has been developing and piloting in recent years. For each of these, we generally have a main outcomes paper, and the possibility of additional papers - some of which we’re working on, and others of which still have potential to be tapped.

These projects are not currently in active data collection, but we are still working on analysis and papers:

Supported Mindful Learning (SMiLe): An online/mobile mindfulness app (Headspace) aimed to improve psychological well-being among college students who are depressed.
Students Taking on Effective Post-Graduate Skills (STEPS): A class-based social-emotional skill-building intervention, embedded into a career-and life-planning course, for upper-level college students.
Wellness Advising with Motivational Interviewing (WA/MI): Examine the effectiveness of an early identification and prevention program incorporated into routine student academic services (e.g., academic advising, success coaching, student accessibility services) in increasing student utilization of mental health services.

The following projects are generally in the archival stage, but there might be data available for secondary analysis:

Supportive Accountability in Mental-health Mentoring of Youth (SAMMY): Examining the feasibility and acceptability of a novel smartphone app (MentorHub) in building youth resilience via supervised skills practice provided by mentors.
Supportive Accountability in Mental-health Mentoring of Young Adults (SAMMY-A): Examining the impacts of an app-based intervention that leverages college students’ relationship with their academic advisors, who offer supportive accountability for students’ engagement in mental health apps. This intervention is intended to promote well-being and academic success especially for low-income, first-generation, BIPOC and/or academically at-risk college students.
Honest, Open, Proud (HOP): A peer-led small-group intervention for college students self-identifying as living with mental illness, aimed at reducing self-stigma and improving self-efficacy about disclosure-related decisions.
Life Skills Training (LiST): A national prevention program for incoming college students, teaching skills for coping with various challenges, including the transition to college, building healthy relationships, and preventing sexual violence and substance use and abuse.
Promoting Psychosocial Wellness (PPW): A class-based psychosocial wellness promoting intervention for first-year college students.

4. Observational Data Available