Community Living with Mental Illness: A Sensory Health Initiative (2026-2027)

Background

Successful community living depends on being able to manage everyday tasks such as cooking, cleaning and paying bills. Adults with serious mental illness often face sensory processing challenges that make these activities more difficult and can limit their independence and stability in housing. There are few evidence-based tools to help community behavioral health workers identify and respond to these sensory challenges.

Researchers are also exploring whether certain brain activity patterns could serve as biomarkers to understand how sensory interventions affect mental health. One promising possibility is alpha oscillation — the brain’s dominant rhythm, which appears to influence sensory processing, attention and anxiety. New at-home electroencephalogram (EEG) technologies now make it possible to measure this activity in real-world settings.

Project Description

This project team will support the independent living and community integration of adults with serious mental illness by developing sensory health interventions and tools for behavioral health providers. Building on work from the 2025-2026 team, the 2026-2027 team will refine and evaluate a sensory health screening tool, disseminate findings from a study of sensory experiences in local emergency departments and develop and test a new sensory health room at a Community Resource Hub in Raleigh.

Team members will collaborate with community partners and use mixed methods including surveys, interviews and onsite observations to assess the feasibility, acceptability and usability of sensory health tools. They will also work with neuroscientists to measure alpha oscillations using a portable EEG system to evaluate the impact of sensory interventions before, during and after use. Approximately 20 adults with serious mental illness will participate in an initial pilot study.

Students will work in subteams focused on screening refinement, emergency department sensory environments, sensory room development and neuroscience-based evaluation. Each subteam will meet weekly and also participate in full-team weekly meetings with stakeholders and faculty leaders.

Anticipated Outputs

Refined sensory health screening tool
Recommendations for sensory environments in emergency departments
Developed and evaluated sensory health room at the Community Resource Hub
Recommendations for creating sensory health rooms in other settings
Recommendations for measuring biomarkers related to sensory interventions
EEG pilot data and protocols

Student Opportunities

Ideally, this project team will include 4 graduate students and 6 undergraduate students. Students from majors such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, computer science, occupational therapy and the humanities are encouraged to apply. Students with lived experience or interest in mental health, community engagement or participatory design are especially welcome.

Team members will help create and maintain meaningful partnerships with behavioral health providers, peer support specialists and people with lived experience. Students will participate in working groups, help design and refine research protocols, analyze qualitative and quantitative data, draft manuscripts and develop dissemination products such as websites, videos and written resources.

Students will gain skills in community-engaged research, qualitative interviewing, survey design, implementation science, sensory health assessment and neuroscience methods using portable EEG. Graduate students will gain experience mentoring undergraduates and supporting project coordination. One student will be selected to serve as a project manager, handling meeting facilitation, communication and task tracking.

In Fall 2026, the team will meet on Wednesdays from 12:45-1:45 p.m. in the Interprofessional Education and Care building.

Timing

Summer 2026 – Spring 2027

Summer 2026 (optional):

Seek Institutional Review Board approvals

Fall 2026:

Pilot sensory health screen and collect data on feasibility, usability and acceptability
Develop recommendations for emergency department sensory environments
Develop sensory room at the Community Resource Hub
Collect EEG data to measure impact of sensory interventions

Spring 2027:

Analyze interview and survey data to refine and finalize screen
Disseminate recommendations for emergency department sensory environments
Evaluate sensory room
Analyze EEG data
Share findings with community partners

Crediting

Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters