Faculty & Staff
Faculty
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Title: Professor |
Dr. Gum is a Professor in the Department of Behavioral Health Science & Practice, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. Dr. Gum conducts research on mental health services for older adults and medical patients, and she maintains an active license in clinical psychology in the state of Florida (since 2004).
Education
- 2002 - PhD, Clinical Psychology (Health), University of Kansas
- 1997 - MA, Psychology - Wake Forest University
- 1995 - BA , Psychology, Honors College, Missouri State University (formerly Southwest Missouri State University before 2005)
Research Interests
Dr. Gum aims to improve well-being for older adults and medical patients, through applied research in behavioral health services and trauma-informed care in medical and aging service settings.
Do More Feel Better (DMFB): Lay-led behavioral activation for depressed senior center clients
Dr. Gum is completing an R01 (MH124956-01) from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to conduct a randomized controlled trial of behavioral activation for depressed senior center clients, delivered by a volunteer coach or master's-level clinician (NCT04621877). An administrative supplement expanded the trial to Spanish-speaking depressed older adults. This project is part of a multi-site trial with the University of Washington (PI: Raue) and Weill Cornell Medicine (PI: Sirey). The study is closed to recruitment, and recruitment milestones were met on time.
Findings thus far indicate that Do More Feel Better is feasible and acceptable both for older adult volunteer coaches to deliver with high fidelity and for senior center staff to coordinate (with appropriate resources). Clients in both conditions showed improvements in depressive symptoms, behavioral activation, and disability, and reported high satisfaction with the program.
In an ongoing collaboration with USF, Socios En Salud in Lima, Peru, has implemented DMFB (Haga Más, Siéntase Mejor) in northern Lima, with promising early results. Watch a short video about this partnership.
For more information, please see the DMFB website at UW and the publications and news stories below:
Publications
Raue, P. J., Sirey, J. A., Gum, A., Hawrilenko, M., & Fisher, D. M. (2022). Protocol for a collaborative randomised effectiveness trial of lay-delivered versus clinician-delivered behavioural activation in senior centres. BMJ Open, 12, Article e066497. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-066497
Cameron, K. (2023). Senior center spotlight: Hillsborough County senior centers are partners in research to address mental health concerns of older adults. National Council on Aging. https://www.ncoa.org/article/senior-center-spotlight-hillsborough-county-senior-centers-are-partners-in-research-to-address-mental-health-concerns-of-older-adults
Gum, A., & Raue, P. (2023). Easing older adult depression: How one program is showing promise. National Council on Aging. https://www.ncoa.org/article/easing-older-adult-depression-how-one-program-is-showing-promise
Crawford, N. O., Steinman, L., Rollandi, I., Li, B., Rubio, E., Mosser, B., Rouvere, J., Blanchard, B. E., Gum, A., Sirey, J. A., & Raue, P. J. (2025). Older adult volunteers' experiences delivering a lay-led behavioral activation program for depression among community-dwelling older adults: A mixed methods study. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: Open Science, Education and Practice, 6, 54–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osep.2025.05.001
Wang, M. Z., Steinman, L. E., Sirey, J. A., Gum, A., Rollandi, I., Crawford, N., Blanchard, B. E., Dillabaugh, A., & Raue, P. J. (2025). Designing implementation strategies for lay-delivered depression care: Senior center organizational perspectives from a multi-site randomized clinical trial. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: Open Science, Education and Practice, 7, 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.osep.2025.07.001
News stories:
Spectrum BayNews9. (2023, August 3). Research shows peer coaching effective intervention for seniors with depression [News story]. https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2023/08/03/research-shows-peer-coaching-effective-intervention-for-seniors-experiencing-depression-
WUSF. (2024, April 25). Can older adults treat depression in their peers? USF researchers want to find out [News story]. https://www.wusf.org/health-news-florida/2024-04-25/older-adults-treat-depression-peers-usf-researchers-do-more-feel-better
Care Transitions Intervention + Peer Support: Transitional care and peer support interventions to reduce hospital readmissions
Dr. Gum is also completing a PCORI-funded comparative effectiveness trial (AD-2019C1-16066) with Dr. Kyaien Conner at the University of Pittsburgh. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of a novel transitional care strategy enhanced with peer educators, designed to avoid unplanned hospital readmissions and improve patient health outcomes among a racially and ethnically diverse sample of older adults hospitalized for a chronic health condition (NCT04981977). The study is closed to recruitment, and recruitment milestones were met on time.
Publications and presentations:
Conner, K. O., Gum, A. M., Schonfeld, L., Kosyluk, K., Anderson, E., Baker-Douglan, J., Beckstead, J., Meng, H., Brown, C., & Reynolds, C. F., III. (2021). Enhancing care transitions intervention with peer support to improve outcomes among older adults with co-occurring clinical depression: A pilot study. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 40(4), 324–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621424.2021.1967249
Conner, K. O., Gum, A. M., Meng, H., Yampolskya, S., Callejas, L., Goldsworthy, M., & Albizu-Jacob, A. (2026, April). Examination of the evidence-based Care Transitions Intervention enhanced with peer support to reduce racial disparities in hospital readmissions and negative outcomes post hospitalization [Paper presentation]. In A. Gum (Chair), Lay-led behavioral interventions for older adults: Results from three trials [Symposium]. American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, Arlington, VA.
Other Research
Dr. Gum has also conducted research on integrating behavioral interventions into primary care and applying trauma-informed care in primary care settings, with past funding from PCORI and other sources. Her interests in this area include physical–mental health comorbidities, and she is developing new research combining behavioral health with health behavior interventions such as nutrition and physical activity.
In collaboration with the myPATH Partnership, and supported by prior PCORI engagement funding (Treating Depressed Primary Care Patients: Don't Forget About Trauma; Primary Care Patients With Trauma History: Expanding a “Safety” Research Partnership and Network), Dr. Gum and colleagues developed a training curriculum to prepare stakeholders for patient-centered, trauma-informed collaborative research. The team's long-term goal is to conduct and disseminate research evaluating patient-centered outcomes for evidence-based interventions for primary care patients with trauma. The training curriculum is available online at no cost, and providers can earn up to 3 free CEUs.
Gum, A. M., Epstein-Lubow, G., Gaudiano, B., Wittink, M., & Horvath, C. (2019). Brief behavioural strategies for distressed primary care patients. BMJ, 366, Article l5360. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l5360
Gum, A., Goldsworthy, M., Salloum, A., Grau, M., & Guerra, L. (2020, November 9 & 16). Doing research together to address trauma for primary care patients [Continuing education training]. University of South Florida. 3 CEUs available for health, behavioral health, and social work professionals. https://www.usf.edu/cbcs/mhlp/centers/mypath/training/index.aspx
Gum, A. M., Goldsworthy, M., Guerra, L., Salloum, A., Grau, M., Gottstein, S., Horvath, C., Fields, A., Crowder, J., Holley, R., Ruth, L. J., & Hanna, K. (2022). Trauma-informed patient and public-engaged research: Development and evaluation of an online training programme. Health Expectations, 26(1), 388-398. https://doi.org/10.1111/hex.13668
Past Experience
In the past, Dr. Gum has received funding as Principal Investigator from NIMH, PCORI, SAMHSA (subcontract), RRF Foundation for Aging, the Institute for Optimal Aging, and USF's internal grants programs. Dr. Gum has also collaborated on grants funded by NIMH, NSF, and SAMHSA. In 2015–2016, Dr. Gum was a U.S. Fulbright Core Scholar to Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She was also a trainee in an NIMH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in mental health services research at the University of California, San Francisco (2002–2004); the NIMH Summer Research Institute in Geriatric Psychiatry (2004); the NIH Summer Research Institute in Cross-Systems Health Services Research (2008); and the NIMH Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health (2009–2011).
Other Recent Publications
For a complete list of journal articles, please see Dr. Gum's NCBI My Bibliography.
Gum, A., Jensen, C., Schonfeld, L., Conner, K., & Guerra, L. (2022). A pilot study of brief, stepped behavioral activation for primary care patients with depressive symptoms. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 30, 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-022-09864-x
Gum, A. M., Green, O., Dassa, A., Klausner, K., Gewirtz-Meydan, A., & Ayalon, L. (2022). Behavioral activation for live-in migrant home care workers and care recipients in Israel: A pilot study. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 41(3), 219–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621424.2022.2054393
Schonfeld, L., Bell, J., Goldsworthy, M., Kip, K., Gum, A. M., Conner, K. O., Green, O., Wagoner, F., Parkinson, K., Melling, K. A., & Markwood, S. (2022). Screening and priority-setting to determine home- and community-based aging services for older Floridians. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 41(3), 699–708. https://doi.org/10.1177/07334648211012508
Gum, A. M., & Crawford, N. O. (2026). Psychotherapy for older adults with depression: A narrative review. Neuropsychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-026-02327-z