How can a person fully develop his or her potential, regardless of life circumstances? This is the question that brought Stanford child and adolescent psychiatrist Victor Carrion, MD, to his work on child anxiety and mood disorders. Carrion, who also directs the Stanford Early Life Stress and Pediatric Anxiety Research Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, just won the Silicon Valley Business Journal's Excellence in Healthcare award for his dedication to this question.
In an article describing this honor, Carrion says he's always wanted to go into medicine and explore human behavior. While he's very proud of the advances his lab has made in understanding the impact of early life stress on behavior, he also notes that there remain significant barriers to mental health in the region, including stigma and accessibility of treatment.
One of the innovative programs Carrion has been involved in is a study on the effectiveness of a health and wellness program in the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto. The program teaches kids about mindfulness and positive habits that encourage calm, focused attitudes; Carrion and his colleagues will follow student participants over the next four years, tracking cognitive function, academic strengths and weaknesses, behavior, and stress-related hormone levels.
Previously: Stanford researchers use yoga to help underserve youth manage stress and gain focus, Prolonged fatigue and mood disorders among teens, Yoga classes may boost high school students' mental well-being, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital partners with high schools on student mental health programs and More evidence that chronic stress may increase children's risk of obesity
Photo courtesy of Stanford Medicine News
