Dr. Y. Alicia Hong

WECARE 2.0 was funded by National Institute of Aging Roybal Caregiving Center!  The project entitled “WECARE: A social media-based personalized intervention to enhance caregiving mastery among Chinese American dementia caregivers received $115,000 from Emory Royball Center for Dementia Caregiving Mastery. With the funding, the team will test the updated version of Wellness Enhancement for Caregivers, or WECARE 2.0, a WeChat-based intervention to improve caregiving mastery and reduce psychosocial distress among Chinese American dementia caregivers.

Dr. Alicia Hong was invited to serve on National Institute of Aging Special Emphasis Panel on Dementia Care and Caregiving Support Intervention Research. This panel reviews research grant applications on interventions and support services for people living with dementia and their caregivers.

Stronger2 Project received no-cost extension from Office of Minority Health. The Stronger Partnership Stronger Community: Using Health Literacy to Increase Resilience (Stronger2 Project) was funded by the HHS Office of Minority Health and led by Fairfax County Health Department for a total of $3,875,000 in 2021.  Through partnership with community partners, Stronger2 Project aims to improve health outcomes in communities of color by cultivating an individual’s ability to find, understand and use health information and services in a manner that is culturally and linguistically appropriate. Dr. Alicia Hong leads program evaluation and technical support for the project, other GMU team members include Dr. Farrok Alemi and multiple graduate students. The NCE allows the team to explore new initiatives to serve the community.

The Stronger Partnership Stronger Community: Using Health Literacy to Increase Resilience (Stronger2) project was funded by the HHS Office of Minority Health and led by Fairfax County Health Department for a total of $3,875,000 in 2021. Through partnership with community organizations, Stronger2 aims to improve health outcomes in communities of color by cultivating individuals’ ability to find, understand, and use health information and services in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. Dr. Hong leads program evaluation and technical support for the project; other GMU team members include Dr. Farrokh Alemi and multiple graduate students. The no-cost extension allows the team to explore new initiatives to serve the community.

Jo-Vivian Yu made an impressive presentation of her capstone project entitled “Eating Environment and Eating Behaviors of College Students” and proudly graduated with the Master Science in Health Informatics with honors. Congratulations Shema! Jo-Vivian now works as a statistician/data analyst at UC Census Bureau.

Dr. Alicia Hong was invited to the panel of “How Can Public Health Better Utilize Social Media – Challenges and Opportunities” at UConn Center for mHealth and Social Media 7th Annual Conference. She shared her experiences on using social media to reach underserved populations for health promotion and interventions.

Jo-Vivian Yu gave an impressive presentation of her capstone project, “Eating Environment and Eating Behaviors of College Students,” and graduated with a Master of Science in Health Informatics with honors. Congratulations, Jo-Vivian! She now works as a statistician/data analyst at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Dr. Hong was invited to the panel “How Can Public Health Better Utilize Social Media — Challenges and Opportunities.” She shared her experience using social media to reach underserved populations for health promotion and interventions.

Dr. Hong led an interdisciplinary team and received a $50,000 seed grant from the College of Health and Human Services for “Prototype development of EARBUD: A Wearable Sensor System for Dietary Monitoring and Personalized Intervention.” This study aims to develop a prototype wearable sensor system (earbuds) to track dietary intake for personalized nutrition intervention. Other key personnel include Dr. Hong Xue and Dr. Larry Cheskin of CHHS, and Dr. Gang Zhou of William & Mary.

Dr. Hong, along with Dr. Sojung Kim and Dr. Emily Ihara, received a $45,000 grant from the Virginia Center for Aging Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund for “Alzheimer’s Research Inquiry and Care for Asian Americans (ARICAA): Protocol Development of a Culturally Tailored Social Media-Based Program.” This study aims to develop a social media-based program to promote awareness of and participation in clinical research on Alzheimer’s disease among Asian Americans.

Since the publication of “The dynamics of eating behaviors and eating environment in college students: discrepancies between app-tracked dietary intake and self-perceived food consumption,” multiple news outlets have cited our study — including Vice, Gizmodo, Europe Says, Knowridge, The University Network, Business Standard (India), Die Gesunde Wahrheit, SciTechDaily, NewsCenter (Nigeria), and Earth.com.

Our paper Two-year follow-up of dementia caregivers after a digital health intervention WECARE: a mixed-method study. Aging & Mental Health. 2024 Dec 31:1-8. has been published. PubMed link.

A new paper entitled “Mobile health and behavior tracking (mHBT) among cancer survivors: results from a large and diverse sample” was published on Mhealth. PMID: 38323153

Our qualitative study entitled ‘It’s a lonely journey’: caregiving experiences and psychosocial distress among Chinese American dementia family caregivers, was published on Aging and Mental Health. It also includes a conceptual framework that shows multilevel factors contributing to caregiving stress.

WECARE 1.0 pilot study was published on JMIR Aging!  Our trial showed that WECARE significantly decreased depressive symptoms (effect size=.89) and caregiving burden (effect size=.48) among Chinese American dementia caregivers; the retention rate was 96%. 

The WECARE protocol was published on JMIR Aging! It details the protocol development process and the main features of WECARE. 

Dr. Hong has been invited to deliver the Tay Gavin Erickson Lecture at the UMass Amherst Center for Research on Families on April 28, 2026. Her talk, “From Information to Intelligence: Health Communication in a Digital World,” examines how digital and AI-enabled tools are transforming health communication, with implications for chronic care, family caregiving, and underserved communities. The visit will also include mentoring time with early-career faculty at the Center.

Dr. Alicia Hong was invited to serve on the NIH Study Section of Lifestyle Change and Behavioral Health (LCBH), which reviews grant applications focusing on the adoption or uptake of health promoting behaviors or lifestyle changes to reduce health risks or to recover from diseases, conditions, or treatments at the individual or small group level. Applications typically use psychosocial and behavioral interventions to improve well-being.

Dr. Hong was invited to give a virtual presentation at the UCSF CARE Registry Brain Trust meeting. Her presentation, “Recruiting Underserved Asian Americans Dementia Caregivers into Digital Interventions,” is available online (30:50).

Lab members Shema Salim, Kang Shen, Jo-Vivian Yu, Wish Chang, and Dr. Alicia Hong made multiple presentations at Academy Health Annual Research Meeting in Baltimore, MD, June 29 to July 1, 2024: 

  1. Salim S, Hong YA. National Datasets with Social Determinants of Health Measures and Geocodes: Implications for Policy and Practice. 
  2. Salim S, Hong YA. Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages and Nursing Home Quality: A Longitudinal Study from a Perspective of Social Determinants of Health. 
  3. Hong YA, Shen K, Chang WS. Long-Term Effects of a WeChat-Based Intervention on Chinese American Dementia Caregivers: A Two-Year Follow-up Study. 
  4. Hong YA, Yu JV, Hong X, Gang Z. Effect of Daily Dietary Tracking on Eating Behaviors Among College Students: Results from a Pilot Study. 
  5. Hong YA, Shen K, Chang WH. Process Evaluation Via Weekly Assessment: Results from a WeChat-Based Intervention for Chinese American Dementia Caregivers.

Lab members made a poster presentation at the Society for Behavioral Medicine Annual Conference in Philadelphia, PA, March 13~16, 2024: Hong YA, Yu JV, Xue H, Zhou G. Eating behaviors and eating environment among college students: A longitudinal study using mobile tracking and surveys.

Hong YA, Yu JV, Xue H, Zhou G, “Eating behaviors and eating environment among college students: A longitudinal study using mobile tracking and surveys,” presented in Philadelphia, PA, March 13–16, 2024.

Dr. Hong was invited to present at the UCSF Promoting Research in Social Media and Health Symposium (PRISM), on the panel “International Perspectives on Social Media and Global Health.” She shared her experience using WeChat to reduce stress, stigma, and depressive symptoms among people living with HIV in China.

Dr. Alicia Hong was invited to present at UCSF Promoting Research in Social Media and Health Symposium (PRISM) panel of International Perspectives on Social Media and Global Health. She shared her experiences on using WeChat to reduce stress, stigma and depressive symptoms among people living with HIV in China. 

Part of Dr. Lisa McKeown’s thesis research will be published as conference presentations at 2025 APHA in Washington DC as oral presentation. One is “Provider-Interacting eHealth Behaviors and Patient-Centered Communication: Trends, Predictors, and Disparities”; the other is “Patient-Centered Communication and Provider Interacting eHealth behaviors: Differential Impacts on Cancer Screening by Race and Ethnicity”. Dr. Lisa McKewon graduated from the Mason’s PhD in Health Services Research in 2022, her thesis title was “Patient-Centered Communication and Provider Interacting eHealth Behaviors: Trends and Associations with Cancer Screening”. She’s a program manager at MITRE.

Yiwen Li made an oral presentation entitled Evaluation of WeCare 2.0: A Digital Health Intervention for Chinese American Dementia Caregivers. Sai made a poster presentation entitled Association of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages and Nursing Home Quality: A Perspective of Social Determinants of Health. Both attended the conference the first time and made their first conference presentation, they also received student travel scholarships for their trips to Minneapolis. Congratulations to Yiwen and Sai!

Lab members Shema Salim, Kang Shen, Jo-Vivian Yu, Wish Chang, and Dr. Hong made multiple presentations at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, June 29–July 1, 2024, including: Salim S, Hong YA, “National Datasets with Social Determinants of Health Measures and Geocodes: Implications for Policy and Practice”; Salim S, Hong YA, “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages and Nursing Home Quality: A Longitudinal Study”; Hong YA, Shen K, Chang WS, “Long-Term Effects of a WeChat-Based Intervention on Chinese American Dementia Caregivers: A Two-Year Follow-up Study”; Hong YA, Yu JV, Hong X, Gang Z, “Effect of Daily Dietary Tracking on Eating Behaviors Among College Students: Results from a Pilot Study”; Hong YA, Shen K, Chang WH, “Process Evaluation Via Weekly Assessment: Results from a WeChat-Based Intervention for Chinese American Dementia Caregivers.”

Shema Salim did a wonderful presentation of her capstone project entitled “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages and Nursing Home Quality: A Perspective of Social Determinants of Health” and proudly graduated with the Master of Health Informatics with honors. Congratulations Shema! After graduation, Shema will work as Data Analyst for Fairfax County Health Department.

Kang Shen and Dr. Alicia Hong presented at the UConn Center for mHealth and Social Media 8th Annual Conference, May 16~17, 2024. 

  1. Shen K, Hong YA, Chang WH. Process Evaluation of a Digital Health Intervention for Chinese American Dementia Caregivers: Results from Weekly Assessments. 
  2. Shen K, Hong YA, Chang WH. Two-year follow-up of dementia caregivers after a digital health intervention.

Shema Salim gave a wonderful presentation of her capstone project, “Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantages and Nursing Home Quality: A Perspective of Social Determinants of Health,” and graduated with the Master of Health Informatics with honors. Congratulations, Shema! After graduation, Shema will work as a Data Analyst for Fairfax County Health Department.

Shen K, Hong YA, Chang WH, “Process Evaluation of a Digital Health Intervention for Chinese American Dementia Caregivers: Results from Weekly Assessments,” and “Two-year follow-up of dementia caregivers after a digital health intervention,” presented May 16–17, 2024.

Kang Shen stood out from hundreds of applicants and became CDC Public Health Informatics Fellow. Under this 2-year fellowship starting in August, she will be working in the Office of Assistant of Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, to receive training and develop informatics project for national policies to improve health care quality. Congrats Kang!