Mental Health Research at Lifespan

One of our most defining characteristics is our commitment to creating new knowledge through our research enterprises. Lifespan hospitals are leaders in the realm of mental health research.

Our mental health research arms include:

• The Family Research Program at Rhode Island Hospital is dedicated to assessing and treating families, training family therapists and providing research on families in which one or more members has a physical or psychiatric illness.
• The Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at The Miriam Hospital is focused on improving health through behavioral change and the integration of behavioral and biomedical science using clinical, community and laboratory research. The centers' research bridges biomedical, sociobehavioral and population/public health scientific disciplines.
• As teaching hospitals of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Bradley Hospital and Hasbro Children's Hospital attract faculty who are at the forefront of child mental health research. The Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center (BHCRC) brings together these national leaders, promoting collaboration among research groups, training the next generation of investigators and increasing our ability to advance the field of pediatric mental health. 
• The Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project is an ongoing clinical research study at Rhode Island Hospital that involves the integration of research assessment methods into routine clinical practice.
• The Bradley Campus Research Unit is home to the Pedi-MIND program and The Developmental Disorders Genetics Research Program (DDGRP). The goal of the Pedi-MIND Program is to identify biological and behavioral markers of psychiatric illness in children. DDGRP seeks to identify genes associated with autism and intellectual disability.
• ​The Rhode Island Hospital Division of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurology links multidisciplinary research in clinical neurology, psychiatry, neuropsychology, neurophysiology, genetics and neuroimaging. The translational research is designed to be clinically relevant and patient focused, providing a window to better understanding the brain/behavior relationship.