Yukiko Washio is a senior research psychologist in the Substance use, Gender, and Applied Research Program at RTI. Her training is in biobehavioral science, and her work is both national and international, focusing on pregnant and postpartum populations. Dr. Washio has dedicated her time to developing and testing behavioral interventions to address maternal substance and alcohol use while also addressing maternal health behavior such as breastfeeding. She is also interested in combining different intervention approaches and examining intervention effects on multilevel outcomes, including behavioral, clinical, and microbiological outcomes.

Dr. Washio leads the BOOST protocol with her colleagues at Temple University and Christiana Care, to develop and test the effect of health incentives to increase breastfeeding in low-income populations in the USA, particularly racial/ethnic minority groups of women in under-resourced settings. The BOOST protocol has developed from an understanding of contingency behavior change on breastfeeding among low-income women and sensitivity to the women’s culture. Dr. Yukiko also leads MILC, which aims to develop and test a mobile application to increase exclusive breastfeeding among Hispanic mothers in the U.S., as well as MaRISA, which is a feasibility and acceptability project to develop and test a technology based behavioral intervention to reduce maternal drinking during pregnancy and postpartum in South Africa aiming to eventually prevent FASD among children.