Sunny H. Shin, Ph.D.
Boston University School of Social Work
Junior Investigator, Vulnerable Populations
Project Title: Explaining Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mental Health Services Use among Children involved with Foster Care
"I applied for the New Connections award to make productive connections with private foundations and colleagues whose career goals are to reduce and eventually eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in access to health and human services."
Project Description
Shin's long-range research goal for his project is to identify potential solutions for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in maltreated children's access to mental health services. Barriers to accessing mental health care constitute a more significant problem for ethnic minority children than for Caucasian children, specifically for minority children involved with the child welfare system.
His project is adding to the knowledge base to understand the mechanisms by which race and ethnicity influence access to mental health services. Using structural equation modeling and longitudinal analyses, his project provides additional information to mental health service research about: 1) How mental health outcomes are influenced by childhood maltreatment and involvement with the child welfare system; and 2) How family and cultural factors intersect with racial and ethnic minority children's access to mental health care.
Biography
Sunny H. Shin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Boston University's School of Social Work. His primary research areas are mental health services research, racial/ethnic disparities in mental health services use, child maltreatment, substance abuse and educational outcomes of maltreated children.
In recent years, Shin has studied the effects of childhood maltreatment on developmental outcomes and health and human services use by children, adolescents, and their families. He has practice experience in child welfare and school social work. Shin received his M.S.S.W. degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he taught research methods and practice evaluation courses.
