Research & Publications
Groundswell Communities produces original prevention science research grounded in community voice. Our publications are designed to be actionable translating data and lived experience into frameworks, strategies, and recommendations that coalitions and community-led organizations can use.
SMAACE MODEL OVERVIEW
Understanding the Syndemic: Social Media, Mental Health, and Adverse Experiences
The SMAACE Model, developed by Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers, reveals how social media addiction, mental health challenges, and adverse childhood experiences interact as a "syndemic" a cluster of interconnected health problems that amplify one another.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024
A Multi-Level Prevention Framework:
From Individual to Policy
The SMAACE Solutions framework presents a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to protecting youth by addressing the problem at every level from individual skill-building to systemic policy change.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024
Real and Not Real
They have a thousand friends and nowhere to land. What a generation raised inside the feed can teach us about the difference between being connected and actually belonging.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024 · Published 2025
The Connected Flourishing Framework Ecosystem
Relational Health · Identity Formation · Human Flourishing Across the Life Course
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024 · Published 2025
Brittle Connections names the problem: the widening gap between being connected and truly belonging. Connected Flourishing names the response: the conditions, relationships, and supports that allow people to thrive across every stage of life. Together they move from diagnosis to design—and the empirical and theoretical sources underpinning both are documented in the References.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024 · Published 2025
Generation Alpha's Plan to Guard Against the Newest ACE
Original research on the syndemic interaction between social media addiction, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and declining adolescent mental health with a youth-centered framework for prevention.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024 · Published 2026
How social media, childhood adversity, and the adolescent mental health crisis converge into a syndemic threatening Generation Alpha and what youth say we can do about it.
Dr. T. Hardy-Sellers
Doctor of Social Science, Prevention Science · Groundswell Communities · Research 2024
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Groundswell Communities research is prevention science-based, equity-centered, and community-informed. We prioritize youth voice, lived experience, and practical application.
