Stony Brook Medicine Leads Program to Prevent PTSD in Emergency Responders
A new resiliency training program for first responders led by Stony Brook Medicine will be conducted through fire stations and emergency medical services organizations in New York and Texas beginning in 2026, with the goal to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in first responders.
The initiative is supported by a five-year, $3.3 million grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that runs through June 2030.
The Stony Brook Medicine team, led by Adam Gonzalez, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University, along with the Texas A&M University team, led by Anka Vujanovic, will recruit participants for a clinical trial to evaluate the Worker Resilience Training (WRT) program. Rebecca Schwartz will lead the data coordinating site at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health.
Developed by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, WRT is a four-hour interactive workshop to educate first responders about the health effects of traumatic exposures and PTSD. The program also demonstrates and trains responders in ways to increase coping strategies and promote resilience practices, such as stress management and healthy lifestyle behaviors.
“First responders risk their lives every day to protect our communities. We are honored to have the opportunity to give back and to work collaboratively to support their physical and mental health,” said Gonzalez, principal investigator and founding director of the Mind-Body Clinical Research Center in RSOM’s Neurosciences Institute.
Previously, Gonzalez and colleagues completed a clinical trial of WRT with 167 participants. Results from this preliminary research showed that compared to a control group, WRT helped prevent PTSD and depression symptoms, as well as improved important resilience indicators, such as stress management, physical activity and healthy lifestyle behaviors over the course of three months.
Stony Brook and collaborative institutions expect to recruit about 800 firefighters and EMS workers for his five-year study, which will build on the previous work. Recruitment begins in early spring 2026. They will work directly with fire stations and EMS organizations on Long Island, Westchester and Rockland Counties in New York State, and within the Houston area in Texas.
They expect the results of evaluating WRT will have broad implications regarding building resilience and preventing PTSD in first responders. If successful, such programs could be implemented nationwide to foster good mental health practices and resilience training for responders that prevents PTSD.
For more information about the NIMH grant, see this abstract.