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Ana Radovic, MD, MSc

  • Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
  • Associate Fellowship Director, Adolescent Medicine, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Administrative Assistant: Mary Zandier

Radovic is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a pediatrician and subspecialist in adolescent medicine. Radovic completed her undergraduate and medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She completed pediatrics residency and adolescent medicine fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and also received a Masters in Clinical Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

Radovic focuses on how to use technology to improve mental health services for adolescents with symptoms of depression or anxiety. She has studied primary care provider attitudes toward approaching shared decision making with parents; the use of electronic order sets and screening decision aids to improve the integration of behavioral health services in primary care settings; and the impacts of social media and technology use in depressed adolescents and their parents. Her team has developed a website intervention for teens with symptoms of depression or anxiety - sova.pitt.edu - which aims to allow adolescents to anonymously share their stories in a safe space, counteract negative attitudes toward treatment, and provide opportunities for social support. Also there is an accompanying parent website - wisesova.pitt.edu - which aims to enhance parent and adolescent communication around issues of mental health. More recently, Radovic and a team from small business NuRelm and University of Virginia are investigating the use of passive sensing to understand whether this method may be used in future interventions to predict symptoms of depression in adolescents.

Radovic has been funded by an institutional career development award, the PCOR K12 award, to develop training in human computer interaction and stakeholder engagement. In 2020, she is finishing a K23 early career investigator award from the National Institute of Mental Health.

She is a core faculty member of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Behavioral Health, Media, and Technology and a center investigator and co-leader of stakeholder engagement for the ALACRITY-funded Enhancing Treatment and Utilization for Depression and Emergent Suicidality in Pediatric Primary Care study (etudes.pitt.edu).

Professional and Scientific Society Memberships

  • Society for Pediatric Research, Fellows’ Section Member, 2012-2017
  • Academy Health, Member, 2013-2014
  • American Academy of Pediatrics, Member, Fellow, 2008-Present
  • Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, Co-Chair of Mental Health Committee, 2011-Present
  • Society for Pediatric Research, 2018-Present

Education & Training

  • BA, Case Western Reserve University, 2004
  • MD, Case Western Reserve University, 2008
  • Internship, Pediatrics Residency, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 2011
  • MSc, University of Pittsburgh, 2013
  • Fellowship, Adolescent Medicine, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 2014

Selected Publications

Refereed Articles

Radovic A, Burstein GR, Marshal MP, Murray, PJ, Miller, E, Sucato, GS. Adolescents' attitudes toward expedited partner therapy for sexually transmitted infections. Sex Transm Dis. 2013 Nov;40(11):894-7.  PMID: 24113416  

Radovic A, Farris C, Reynolds K, Reis, EC, Miller, E, Stein, BD. Primary care providers' initial treatment decisions and antidepressant prescribing for adolescent depression. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2014 Jan;35(1):28-37. PMID: 24336091 PMCID: PMC4105359

Radovic, A, Farris, C, Reynolds, K, Reis, EC, Miller, E, Stein, BD. Primary Care Providers’ Beliefs About Teen and Parent Barriers to Depression Care. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2014 Oct; 35(8):534-8. PMID: 25098692 PMCID: PMC4377232

Radovic, A, Reynolds, K, McCauley, HL, Sucato, GS, Stein, BD, Miller, E. Parents’ Role in Adolescent Depression Care: Primary Care Provider Perspectives. J Pediatr. 2015 Oct 167 (4): 911-8. PMID: 26143382 PMCID: PMC4586359

Lin L, Sidani JE, Shensa A, Radovic A, Miller E, Colditz JB, Giles LM, Primack BA. Association Between Social Media Use and Depression Among U.S. Young Adults. Depression & Anxiety. 2016 00: 1-9. PMID: 26783723 PMCID: PMC4853817

Radovic A, Vona, PL, Santostefano, AM, Ciaravino, S, Miller, E, Stein, BD. Smartphone applications for Mental Health. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 2016 July 19(7): 465-70. PMID: 27428034 PMCID: PMC5335803

Radovic A, Gmelin T, Stein BD, Miller E. Depressed adolescents’ positive and negative use of social media. J Adolesc. 2016 Dec 17 (55): 5-15. PMID: 27997851 PMCID: PMC5485251

Richardson LP, McCarty, CA, Radovic, A, Suleiman, AB. Research in the Integration of Behavioral Health for Adolescents and Young Adults in Primary Care Settings: A Systematic Review. J Adolesc Health. 2017 Mar; 60 (3): 261-269. PMID: 28087267

Primack BA, Shensa A, Sidani JE, Whaite EO, Lin LY, Rosen D, Colditz JB, Radovic A, Miller E. Social Media Use and Perceived Social Isolation Among Young Adults in the U.S. Am J Prev Med. 2017 Jul; 53 (1): 1-8. PMID: 28279545

Radovic A, DeMand A, Gmelin T, Stein BD, Miller E. SOVA: Design of a stakeholder informed social media website for depressed adolescents and their parents. Journal of Technology in Human Services. 2017 Jul; 335 (3): 169-182.

Radovic, A, Gmelin, T, Hua, J, Long, C, Stein, BD, Miller E. Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA), a Social Media Website for Adolescents with Depression and/or Anxiety: Technological Feasibility, Usability, and Acceptability Study. JMIR Ment Health. 2018; 5(1):e17.  

Radovic, A, McCarty, CA, Katzman, K, Richardson, LP. Adolescents’ Perspectives on Using Technology for Health: Qualitative Study. JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting. 2018; 1 (1):e2.

Peters KM, Sadler, G, Miller E, Radovic A. An Electronic Referral and Social Work Protocol to Improve Access to Mental Health Services. Pediatrics. Published online October 3, 2018. Doi: 10.1542/peds.2017-2417.

Radovic A, Li Y, Landsittel D, Stein BD, Miller E. A Social Media Website (Supporting Our Valued Adolescents) to Support Treatment Uptake for Adolescents With Depression and/or Anxiety and Their Parents: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Res Protoc. 2019; 8 (1): e12117 doi:10.2196/12117.

Windler C, Clair M, Long C, Boyle L, Radovic A. Role of Moderators on Engagement of Adolescents With Depression or Anxiety in a Social Media Intervention: Content Analysis of Web-Based Interactions. JMIR Ment Health. 2019; 6 (9). Doi: 10.2196/13467.

Radovic A, Odenthal K, Flores AT, Miller E, Stein BD. Prescribing Technology to Increase Uptake of Depression Treatment in Primary Care: A Pre-implementation Focus Group Study of SOVA (Supporting Our Valued Adolescents). Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings. 2019. in press. doi: 10.1007/s10880-019-09669-5.

Reviews, Invited Published Papers, Monographs, Books, and Book Chapters

Radovic A, Miller E, Stein B. Why are pediatric primary care providers reluctant to prescribe 
antidepressants? Clinical Practice. 2014; 11(4): 393-396. 

Moreno, MA and Radovic, A. Technology and Adolescent Mental Health. London, England: Springer. 2018. (co-editor and lead author on chapter “Social Media Use and Display of Depressive Symptoms Online by Adolescents and Young Adults”)

Radovic, A, Moreno MA. Treatment Options for Adolescent Depression. JAMA Pediatr. 2019; epub ahead of print, PMID: 30688983.

Research Interests

  • Adolescent Depression
  • Adolescent Anxiety
  • Technology Use in Adolescents
  • Integrated Behavioral Health
  • Social Media Use in Adolescents
  • Passive Sensing
  • Cyberbullying
  • Parent-Adolescent Communication
  • Quality Improvement
  • Qualitative Research

Research Grants

T32 HS019486-01, T32 RAND-University of Pittsburgh Comparative Effectiveness (PI: Kevin Kraemer, MD)     Postdoctoral Scholar    75    2011-2013    Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, University of Pittsburgh $25,000/year x 2 years
K12 HS 22989-1    Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) Scholars Program    K12 PCOR Scholar    75    2014-2017    Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, University of Pittsburgh $25,000/year x 3 years
n/a    Therapist Moderator Role in the Supporting Our Valued Adolescent Intervention     Awardee, PI    n/a    2016-2018    Research Advisory Committee, Children‚Äôs Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, $35,000/year x 2 years
n/a    WORDOUT: SOVA & Focus On Renewal (Community Partnership Dissemination Grant)    PI    n/a    2019    University of Pittsburgh Center for Translational Science Institute, $6500