I study well-being and service use among immigrant and racial, ethnic, and linguistic minority populations, and how the digitalization is changing access, delivery, and experience of care for these groups. My work spans three areas: (a) the delivery system, including workforce composition, the availability of culturally and linguistically concordant care, and the state-level policy environments that shape both; (b) the populations, including their well-being, coping, help-seeking, informal care networks, and use of digital and AI-mediated resources; and (c) the practitioners, including capacity-building, and intervention development for culturally and linguistically appropriate services.
I utilize quantitative and computational methods with community-engaged research approaches. I am specifically interested in NLP and large language models in social work and migration studies across research, practice, and education: in research, as methods for work with diverse populations; in practice, as technologies that shape assessment, documentation, and decision-making; and in education, as a growing area of training in the field.
PROGRAM OF RESEARCH
Area 1. The Delivery System
This area examines how the healthcare and social service delivery system is structured for immigrant and ethnic minority populations. Using administrative and provider directory data, I study workforce composition, the geographic distribution of culturally and linguistically concordant care, and the state-level policy environments that shape both. The questions are not only about supply and demand but about visibility: which populations the system recognizes as in need of care, and which remain outside what it counts as the served population.
Selected Publications
- Yoo, N., Park, M., & Chang, D.F. (2025). Using Computational Methods to Assess Racial, Ethnic, and Linguistic Diversity and Spatial Accessibility of the Clinical Social Work Workforce in the United States. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. doi: 10.1086/738140
- Yoo, N., Hong, Y., & Choi, Y. (2025). Explaining racial/ethnic disparities in telehealth use with different levels of English proficiency: A decomposition approach. Telemedicine Reports. doi: 10.1177/26924366251379188
- Yoo, N., Nicholson, H., Chang, D.F., & Okazaki, S., (2023) Mapping anti-Asian xenophobia: State-level variation in implicit and explicit bias against Asian Americans across the United States. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 9, 23780231231196517. doi: 10.1177/23780231231196517
- Yoo, N., Mane, H., Zhao, A., Chen, J., Gandhi, A., Kwong, K., Nguyen, T., Okazaki, S., & Chang, D. F. (Revised and Resubmitted). Working with Annotator Disagreement in Community-Informed Labeling: The Case of Anti-Asian Bias Detection on Social Media. Translational Data Science for Social Impact.
- Park, M., Jeong, E., Yoo, N., Choi, Y., Cabassa, L. J., Yasui, M., & Takeuchi, D. (2025). Mental health service use among Filipino American and Korean American young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Community Psychology. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.70043
- Na, S., Solomon, P., & Yoo, N. (2026). Impact of Asian Language-Speaking Mental Health Providers on Asian American Patient Volume in Mental Health Treatment Facilities: Moderating Role of Medicaid Spending. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. doi: 10.1007/s40615-026-02853-y
- Baslock, D.& Yoo, N. (2026). Multidimensional approaches to ranking state-level rurality to enhance comparisons across states. Milbank Quarterly. doi: 10.1111/1468-0009.70067
Area 2. The Populations
This area examines what immigrant and ethnic minority populations do under conditions of unequal access. It covers help-seeking and mental health service use, well-being and coping in digital environments, informal care networks, and the role of digital and AI-mediated resources. It also addresses the structural conditions, including racism, xenophobia, and discrimination, that shape mental health and help-seeking among these populations.
Selected Publications
- Yoo, N., & Jang, S.H. (Revised and Resubmitted). How bridging and bonding social capital shape performance expectancy of digital transformation among immigrants and natives. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.
- Yoo, N., & Jang, S.H. (Revised and Resubmitted). Who is Willing to Use AI Chatbots for Mental Health Support? Perceived Impact of AI in Healthcare Predicts Acceptance, with Higher Willingness among Immigrants. Computers in Human Behavior Reports.
- Yoo, N., & Jang, S.H. (Revised and Resubmitted). The Immigrant Advantage in ChatGPT Adoption: Decomposing Nativity Gaps Across Awareness, Use, and Use Cases. Technology in Society.
- Yoo, N., Rodwin, A., Park, M., Youm, S. & Jang, S. H. (2026). Emotional expression and mental health support in BTS fandom communities: a natural language processing study on YouTube comments. JMIR Infodemiology. doi: 10.2196/74397
- Yoo, N., & Jang, S.H. (2024). Enhancing or compensating? The role of on- and offline social capital and technological self-efficacy on subjective well-being among immigrants and natives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 27(11), 846-855. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2024.0152
- Yoo, N., & Jang, S.H. (2023). Increased digital technology use, technological self-efficacy, and life satisfaction among North Korean migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic: Moderated Moderation. Digital Health. 9, 20552076231171503. doi: 10.1177/20552076231171503
- Youm, S., Yoo, N., Jang, S.H., & Dorr, B. (In Press). Beyond Positive or Negative: How Mixed Emotions on Reddit Are Linked to Depressive Symptoms in Asian American Families. Digital Minds Workshop at ICWSM 2026.
Area 3. The Practitioners
This area examines capacity-building and intervention development for the practitioners and gatekeepers who mediate care for immigrant and ethnic minority populations. It includes work with community-based gatekeepers (e.g., faith leaders, teachers) on mental health literacy and referral capacity, and work with clinicians on documentation and practice in behavioral health settings.
Selected Publications
- Yoo, N., Ritchie, A., & Gwadz, M. (In Press). Training computational social work scientists: lessons from Summer Institute of Computational Social Science. Journal of Social Work Education.
- Yoo, N., Khor, A., Mukhija, N., Adebiyi, A., & Zilka, M., (In Press). Guidelines for Whom? Rethinking AI Ethics in Resource-Constrained Migration Services. 2026 ACL Workshop on Evaluating AI in Practice.
- Yoo, N., Kang, M., Kim, E., Lee, S. Y., Woo, J., & Kim, S. Y. (2026). Korean American church leaders as mental health gatekeepers in the United States: a needs assessment of readiness, barriers, and referrals. Journal of Religion and Health. doi: 10.1007/s10943-026-02589-3
- Yoo, N., Kang, M., Lee, S. Y., Na, J. Y., Woo, J., & Kim, S. Y. (2026). Effectiveness of a Virtual Mental Health Literacy Training for Korean American Church Leaders: Knowledge, Behavioral Intentions, and Confidence. Pastoral Psychology. doi: 10.1007/s11089-026-01308-9
- Stanhope, V., Yoo, N., Matthews, L., Baslock, D., & Hu, Y. (2024). The impact of collaborative documentation on person-centered care: A textual analysis of clinical notes. JMIR Medical Informatics. 12, e52678. doi: 10.2196/52678
- Chang, D.F., Doucet, F., Whitney, J., Miao, I.Y., Yoo, N., Zwerger, N., Kaplan, J., Antoine, C., & Romano, L. (2026). Feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a mindfulness-based critical consciousness training program for teachers. Mindfulness.
Across these three areas, I work on the integration of natural language processing and large language models into social work and migration studies. This includes building computational infrastructure for the field, including domain-specific multilingual dictionaries, language models, and benchmarks; applying NLP and LLM methods to questions earlier methods could not reach; and developing training materials for the next generation of researchers and practitioners.
MENTORSHIP AND COLLABORATION
I work with students and collaborators from social work, sociology, public health, psychology, and data science. Mentorship covers research design, interdisciplinary collaboration, and professional development for students moving into mental health research and practice. Collaborations include partnerships with hospitals, community-based organizations, and research organizations working on behavioral health equity and digital access.
At this time, I do not have open RA positions, but I am creating an interest pool of students. If opportunities arise, I may reach out to you. If you are a current U-M MSW student, some RA opportunities may be paid depending on project funding. Others may be for course credit or volunteer experience.
Importantly: you do not need prior research experience to sign up. If you are curious and motivated, that is enough for some of my projects. If you are volunteering, I will make every effort to ensure that your work is meaningful, that you learn something new, and that the experience contributes to your growth🌱. When students make substantial contributions to a project, there may also be opportunities to be involved in conference presentations or publications.
CONTACT
Dr. Nari Yoo, Assistant Professor of Social Work (nariyoo@umich.edu)
