The U.S. Department of Defense awards $2M grant to Emily Schmied

Emily Schmied (SPH) was awarded a $2M grant from the Department of Defense for her innovative research on how sleep might reduce suicide.

“This grant will allow us to conduct a clinical trial to test the impact of sleep health-focused interventions on sleep and psychological health, including suicidality, among active-duty service members,” said Schmied, associate professor and director for Academic Affairs Division of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health.

Schmied was funded to conduct a two-part intervention study to first adapt existing sleep health-focused interventions for use among Marines and then evaluate them through a clinical trial.

The new grant extends Schmied’s larger research portfolio, “I co-developed one of the interventions we will adapt in this study through a previous DoD-funded grant.”

As a self-proclaimed ‘military brat’ Schmied says, “military mental health is a public health issue, approximately 6-7% of the U.S. population has served in the military, and considerably more are military-connected–so work that supports military personnel supports nearly everyone in some way.”

With decades of research experience, Schmied has led numerous DoD-funded research studies on epidemiological investigations and health promotion interventions in military and civilian communities.