SCC-PG: Improving healthcare access in marginalized communities through smart connected technologies

这项计划拨款旨在通过加强获得医疗保健、服务和资源的机会，为边缘社区的老年人提供更好的医疗保健，并鼓励他们改变健康促进行为。该项目设想了一个智能健康获取和资源门户(Sharp)，它既提供了一个界面，使个人能够获得医疗保健系统中的护理和资源，又提供了一个设计、建议和操作虚拟和物理访问的引擎。该项目的结果将积累关于边缘化社区老年人面临的现有医疗障碍的知识，揭示他们与健康相关的偏好和选择行为，并提出潜在的解决方案，以加强他们的物理和虚拟访问，同时保持对医疗保健、服务和资源的隐私。他们还将为未来的综合研究提案奠定基础，该提案将实施、部署和评估夏普。如果成功，参与夏普试点研究的老年人将从更好地获得和参与医疗保健系统中获得切实的健康好处。改善老年人的健康有助于社会的整体福祉，并有助于降低医疗成本。从长远来看，夏普可以部署在其他边缘化/服务不足的社区，以帮助建立一个更健康、更公平的社会。研究成果将通过出版物/演示文稿、与业界伙伴的合作以及与各种社区利益攸关方的接触来广泛传播和采用。这项综合研究跨越社会科学和技术领域。提议的解决方案承诺的核心是集成虚拟和物理访问的整体方法。该项目汇集了来自西北大学(NU)、改善健康(KH)和邻里技术中心(CNT)的专家团队，他们拥有交通和移动系统、计算机工程、行为科学、社会流行病学、人机交互和信息学、医疗物流和社区参与方面的专业知识。该团队将与以CNT为首的一系列社区合作伙伴合作，确定并吸引居住在芝加哥南部选定的低收入社区的老年人。该项目将把学术界、工业界和社区的利益攸关方聚集在一起，以(I)通过对话和讨论了解与医疗保健和移动性相关的需求、优先事项和障碍；(Ii)评估对综合数字工具的需求，以应对已确定的交通和医疗保健准入挑战，以及(Iii)为未来有意义的本地试点研究建立伙伴关系。为了实现这些社区参与目标，该项目将开展以社区为中心的活动，如指导委员会会议、专家小组、聆听会议和调查。该项目将挖掘在这项研究中收集的和从其他来源获得的各种数据。数据挖掘的发现将为新的社会行为理论奠定基础，该理论探索移动性和健康之间的复杂关系，以及医疗保健可获得性和广泛的健康相关行为(例如，健康监测和管理)之间的复杂关系。他们还将启发新的人机交互方法，旨在揭示老年人目前是如何与数字工具交互的，建立这种交互与健康相关行为之间的关联，并评估他们对像夏普这样的综合健康工具的需求。综上所述，该项目将加深我们对(I)边缘化社区老年人获得医疗保健的障碍，以及(Ii)整合私营和公共部门的传统和新兴流动服务方面的体制和技术挑战的理解。该项目还将导致创建一套分析和计算工具，形成夏普的核心情报。其中包括(I)人类数字双胞胎模型和新的资源分配模型，分别解决了在个人和系统层面上的虚拟和物理访问之间的选择；以及(Ii)支持综合运输和卫生物流系统的设计和运营的数学模型和解决方案算法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This planning grant aims to deliver better healthcare to and encourage health-promotion behavioral changes among seniors from marginalized communities, by strengthening access to health care, services, and resources. The project envisions a Smart Health Access and Resource Portal (SHARP), which offers both an interface through which individuals gain access to care and resources in health systems, and an engine that designs, recommends, and operationalizes virtual and physical access. The results from this project will accumulate knowledge about the existing healthcare barriers faced by seniors from marginalized communities, reveal their health-related preferences and choice behaviors, and prescribe potential solutions to strengthening their physical and virtual access while maintaining privacy to health care, services, and resources. They will also lay the foundation for a future integrative research proposal that will implement, deploy, and evaluate SHARP. If succeeded, the seniors who participate in the SHARP pilot study will see tangible health benefits gained from better access to and engagement with healthcare systems. Improving the health of seniors contributes to the overall wellbeing of the society and helps lower healthcare costs. In the long run, SHARP can be deployed in other marginalized/underserved communities to help build a healthier and more equitable society. Research results will be broadly disseminated and adopted through publications/presentations, collaborations with industry partners, as well as engagement with various community stakeholders.This integrative research spans across social science and technology domains. Central to the promise of the proposed solution is a holistic approach to integrating virtual and physical access. The project assembles a team of experts from Northwestern University (NU), Kaizen Health (KH), and Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), with expertise in transportation and mobility systems, computer engineering, behavioral science, social epidemiology, human-computer interaction and informatic, healthcare logistics, and community engagement. The team will work with a range of community partners led by CNT to identify and engage seniors living in selected low-income neighborhoods located in the southside of Chicago. The project will bring together academic, industry and community stakeholders to (i) understand needs, priorities and barriers related to healthcare and mobility via dialogue and discussions; (ii) assess the needs for an integrated digital tool that addresses the identified transportation and healthcare access challenges, and (iii) build partnerships for a meaningful future local pilot study. To fulfill these community engagement objectives, the project will conduct community-centered activities such as Steering Committee Meeting, Expert Panel, Listening Session, and Survey. The project will mine various data collected in this research and acquired from other sources. The findings from data mining will lay the foundation for new socio-behavioral theory that explores the complex relationship between mobility and health and between healthcare accessibility and broad health-related behaviors (e.g., health monitoring and management). They will also inspire new human-computer interaction methods that aim to reveal how seniors currently interact with digital tools, establish the correlations between such interactions and health-related behaviors, and assess their needs for an integrated health tool like SHARP. Taken together, the project will deepen our understanding of (i) the barrier to healthcare access among seniors from marginalized communities, and (ii) institutional and technological challenges in integrating conventional and emerging mobility services from both private and public sectors. The project will also lead to the creation of a suite of analytical and computational tools that form the core intelligence of SHARP. These include (i) a human digital twin model and a novel resource allocation model that address the choice between virtual and physical access at the individual and the system level, respectively; and (ii) mathematical models and solution algorithms supporting the design and operation of an integrated transportation and health logistics system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.