Individuals living with chronic diseases often experience acute and chronic pain alongside co-occurring psychological disorders. Although psychological interventions can effectively address these challenges, many individuals cannot access them due to barriers such as cost, geographic distance, and a shortage of trained providers. Digital health approaches - including electronic health (eHealth) and mobile health (mHealth) tools - offer promising ways to overcome these barriers and expand access to evidence-based psychological care. In this presentation, Dr. Alberts will share her recent research on leveraging wearable, web-based, and app-based digital health interventions to improve pain and psychological outcomes among youth and adults living with chronic diseases. Special focus will be given to developing and testing digital interventions for individuals on-treatment or surviving childhood cancer, adolescents with chronic illnesses, and youth with sickle cell disease. The role of user-centered design and healthcare provider input in developing effective, multi-level digital health interventions will also be explored. Future directions for improving pain and psychological outcomes across the lifespan using engaging and sustainable digital health interventions will be discussed.
Dr. Nicole Alberts is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Behavioural Health Intervention at Concordia University in Montréal. Following her graduate and post-graduate training at the University of Regina and the University of Washington School of Medicine respectively, she joined the Department of Psychology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN as an Assistant Member and Attending Psychologist. In 2020, she joined the Department of Psychology at Concordia.
Dr. Alberts has established herself as an expert in pain and childhood cancer as well as in the use of digital health interventions among medical populations. She has been recognized through a variety of awards and honours including the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study Career Development Award, and the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology Early Career Investigator Award. To date, her scholarly work has resulted in 61 publications, 3 book chapters, and 14 invited talks.
She is currently funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Research Chair's Program, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to lead a program of research focused on improving behavioural health and psychological outcomes among individuals across the lifespan - with an emphasis on those diagnosed with catastrophic and chronic diseases, including childhood cancer. Within this work, she leverages digital health approaches to answer key research questions and to develop and test innovative interventions targeting pain and psychological outcomes.
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