Sean Young (psychologist)

Sean D. Young (born 1979) is a behavioral psychologist and assistant professor with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as the Executive Director of the University of California, Institute for Prediction Technology (UCIPT) and the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior (CDB).

Young received his undergraduate degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, and his master's degree in Health Services Research and PhD in Psychology from Stanford University. Prior to joining UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow, Young worked in technology and user behavior/human factors at the NASA Ames Research Center and Cisco Systems. Since 2011, he has been an assistant professor-in-residence with the UCLA Department of Family Medicine.

Young’s research focuses on the science behind human behavioral change. He is known for work on a range of issues related to technology, including how to implement social media in behavioral change interventions, how social technologies can predict behavior, wearable sensors, and the relationship between online and offline behavior. He has received grants to study how social media and mobile technologies can be used to predict and change behaviors in the areas of health and medicine, consumer behavior, cybersecurity, and crime.

Young has implemented social technologies to address issues related to HIV, drug use prevention, and how to get people to repeat healthy behaviors (e.g., adhere to a medication regimen or exercise routine). As of 2016, he has conducted studies in the United States, Peru, and South Africa, and among homeless youth, undergraduate students, and African American and Latino men who have sex with men.

In addition to his research on social networks, Young has become known for studies of how real-time data can be used to monitor disease and substance use–related behaviors. His work in this area focuses on media-sharing websites designed to evaluate people’s activities, intentions, and social interactions. Insight from the resulting body of data ("social big data") is used to understand how people think and act in a variety of situations.

Young is the Founder and Executive Director of UCIPT and the UCLA CDB. These two interdisciplinary centers were formed to advance research on the use of digital and mobile technologies to understand, predict, and change human behavior. Findings from studies published by the centers have been cited by a wide range of media outlets. As Executive Director of UCIPT, Young is partnering with people from multiple academic fields and business sectors, with the goal of scaling software applications to a diverse range of potential uses.

In 2015, Young received the UC President’s Research Catalyst Award for a multi-campus collaborative project focusing on social big data.

Young created the Harnessing Online Peer Education (HOPE) online intervention, which combines behavior change science and social media. HOPE has been used to help change people’s behaviors in the following areas: HIV and sexual risk behaviors, general health and fitness, drug use, chronic pain management and opioid addiction, and consumer behavior in business. Studies have shown that people who join HOPE communities are two to three times more likely to change their behavior as people who do not join the communities.

Young is also a speaker and teacher. He has presented his work at forums such as the European Parliament, mHealth Conference, and World Congress as well as to corporations and non-profit organizations. He teaches a rotating course in global health to UCLA undergraduate students and has served as a course instructor at Stanford University.

Use of big data for health and behavioral prediction

• Young SD. Behavioral insights on big data: using social media for predicting biomedical outcomes. Cell: Trends Microbiol. 2014; 22(11): 601–602.
• Young SD, Rivers C, Lewis B. Methods of using real-time social media technologies for detection and remote monitoring of HIV outcomes. Prev Med. 2014; 63: 112–115.

Use of social networking and online communities to improve health behaviors

• Young SD, Cumberland WG, Lee SJ, Jaganath D, Szekeres G, Coates T. (2013). Social networking technologies as an emerging tool for HIV prevention: a cluster randomized trial. Ann Intern Med. 2013; 159(5): 318–324.
• Young SD, Cumberland WG, Nianogo R, Menacho LA, Galea JT, Coates T. The HOPE social media intervention for global HIV prevention in Peru: a cluster randomised controlled trial. Lancet HIV. 2015; 2(1): e27–32.
• Young SD, Holloway I, Jaganath D, Rice E, Westmoreland D, Coates T. Project HOPE: Online social network changes in an HIV prevention randomized controlled trial for African American and Latino men who have sex with men. Am J Public Health. 2014; 104(9): 1707–1712.
• Young SD. Recommended guidelines on using social networking technologies for HIV prevention research. AIDS Behav. 2012; 16(7): 1743–1745.

Global health studies

• Young SD, Konda K, Caceres C, Galea J, Lee S, Salazar X, Coates T. Effect of a community popular opinion leader HIV/STI intervention on stigma in urban, coastal Peru. AIDS & Behav. 2011; 15(5), 930–937.
• Young SD, Shakiba A, Kwok J, Montazeri MS. The influence of social networking technologies on female religious veil-wearing behavior in Iran. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2014; 17(5): 317–321.

General behavior change, health, and social media studies

• Young SD, Jordan A. (2013). The influence of social networking photos on social norms and sexual health behaviors. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2013; 16(4): 243–247.
• Young SD, Nussbaum D, Monin B. Potential moral stigma and reactions to sexually transmitted diseases: evidence for a disjunction fallacy. Personality and Social. 2007; Psychol Bull; 33(6): 789–799.
• Young SD, Dutta D, Dommety G. Extrapolating psychological insights from Facebook profiles: a study of religion and relationship status. Cyberpsychol Behav. 2009; 12(3): 347–350.

Guidelines for how to use technologies in healthcare and for behavior change

• Young SD. Recommendations for using online social networking technologies to reduce inaccurate online health information. OJHAS. 2011; 10(2).
• Young SD. Recommended guidelines on using social networking technologies for HIV prevention research. AIDS Behav. 2012; 16(7): 1743–1745.

Community-based participatory research

• Young SD, Klausner J, Flynn R, Bolan R. Electronic vending machines for dispensing rapid HIV self-testing kits: A case study. AIDS Care. 2014; 26(2): 267–269.
• Young SD, Oppenheimer D. Different methods of presenting risk information and their influence on medication compliance intentions: results of three studies. Clin Ther. 2006; 28(1): 129–139.

• Assistant Professor, UCLA Department of Family Medicine
• Director of Innovation, UCLA Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine
• Executive Director, University of California, Institute for Prediction Technology
• Executive Director, UCLA Center for Digital Behavior
• Member of the following professional societies:
  • International AIDS Society
  • Society of Personality and Social Psychology
  • Silicon Beach: Society of Los Angeles–based technology developers
  • Society for Judgment and Decision Making
  • European Health Psychology Society
  • European Federation of IASP Chapters
  • NASA Ames Research Center
  • Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society

• "Faculty/Staff UCLA CBAM". UCLA Center for Behavioral and & Addiction Medicine. Retrieved 2016-03-04. 

• Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award
• Stanford University Social E-challenge Competition Winner
• Best Paper award at IEEE Virtual Reality
• Network for AIDS Research in Los Angeles (NARLA) Seed Grant, Principal Investigator
• UCLA AIDS Institute HIV Prevention Seed Grant
• UCLA CHIPTS Award for HIV prevention with innovative mobile technologies
• NIMH K01: Using online social networks for HIV prevention in African-American and Latino MSM
• UCLA Health System Appreciation Award for Excellence
• mHealth Training Award
• Fordham Ethics Award in HIV prevention