Enhancing follow-up rates through a Rechargable Incentive Card (RIC) System

通过可充值激励卡 (RIC) 系统提高后续率

• 批准号: 7611612
• 负责人: DAVID J FARABEE
• 金额: $ 9.99万
• 依托单位: CALANCE CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-02-01 至 2010-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7611612
• 关键词: Accounting; Addictive Behavior; Address; Affect; Area; Biological; Budgets; Businesses; Chronic; Client; Collaborations; Computer software; Consensus; Crime; Criminal Justice; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Education; Employment; Feasibility Studies; Follow-Up Studies; Funding; Incentives; Institution; Interview; Learning; Link; Longitudinal Studies; Mails; Manuals; Meta-Analysis; Methods; National Institute of Drug Abuse; Nature; Outcome; Pattern; Persons; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Phase; Pilot Projects; Population; Public Health; Randomized; Recording of previous events; Relapse; Relative (related person); Research; Research Personnel; Sampling; Schedule; Site; Substance abuse problem; Surveys; System; Technology; Technology Transfer; Telephone; Testing; Treatment outcome; Work; addiction; base; cost; design; field study; follow-up; improved; interest; payment; programs; prospective; public health relevance; substance abuser; trend; voucher

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For longitudinal field studies involving substance abusers, successfully tracking, locating, and following up with a representative sample of subjects is a challenge. One meta-analysis of 85 longitudinal studies of substance abuse clients found that nearly one-third of subjects were lost to attrition within 36 months (Hansen, Tobler, & Graham, 1990). This poses a significant threat to the validity of findings in the substance abuse (and related) fields, as follow-up rates below 80% have been shown to produce dramatically biased estimates of drug use and crime (Nemes et al., 2002). The purpose of this Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) proposal is to develop a national network that supports a rechargeable incentive card (RIC) system designed to enhance follow-up rates. Specifically, the RIC System will involve a debit card linked to an account in which researchers can immediately transfer funds following a follow-up contact (whether this involves telephone or in-person interviews, mail-in surveys, or provision of biological samples). The card will also contain a toll-free number that subjects can use to call (as often as once a month) to notify the researchers of changes in their locator/contact information. This, too, will result in an automatic transfer of funds to the subjects' RIC System account. Developing this technology will require collaboration between the Calance Corporation and the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs (ISAP). Together, we propose to conduct a feasibility study of the RIC System, a survey comprised of a national sample of NIH-funded substance abuse researchers, and a pilot version of the accounting/tracking software and on-site card-generating machines. The proposed project will have strong commercial potential, as it will address the common problem of low follow-up rates in field studies, and there is evidence that this approach could yield rates 30 percentage points higher than those currently typical in studies of itinerant populations (Des Jarlais et al., 2005). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: With a current annual budget of over $1 billion, NIDA supports approximately 85% of the drug abuse research conducted worldwide. It is critical that these studies of long-term drug use patterns and treatment outcome achieve follow-up rates of at least 80%. Estimates of trends or outcomes based on studies with lower follow-up rates can be invalid and misleading. Therefore, this project directly affects public health by creating a product that improves the validity and generalizability of longitudinal substance abuse research, leading to a better understanding of the nature of drug use and how best to treat it.

描述（由申请人提供）：对于涉及药物滥用者的纵向实地研究，成功跟踪、定位和跟踪具有代表性的受试者样本是一项挑战。一项对85个药物滥用客户纵向研究的荟萃分析发现，近三分之一的受试者在36个月内因自然流失而流失（Hansen, Tobler, & Graham, 1990）。这对药物滥用（及相关）领域调查结果的有效性构成了重大威胁，因为低于80%的随访率已显示出对吸毒和犯罪的严重偏见估计（Nemes等人，2002年）。第一阶段小企业技术转让（STTR）提案的目的是发展一个国家网络，支持旨在提高后续费率的可充电奖励卡系统。具体来说，RIC系统将涉及一张与一个账户相关联的借记卡，研究人员可以在后续联系后立即向该账户转账（无论这是否涉及电话或面对面访谈、邮寄调查或提供生物样本）。卡片上还将包含一个免费电话号码，受试者可以使用该号码拨打（每月一次），以通知研究人员他们的定位器/联系信息的变化。这也将导致资金自动转移到受试者的RIC系统账户。开发这项技术需要卡兰斯公司和加州大学洛杉矶分校综合药物滥用计划（ISAP）之间的合作。我们共同提议对RIC系统进行可行性研究，由美国国立卫生研究院资助的药物滥用研究人员的全国样本组成的调查，以及会计/跟踪软件和现场卡片生成机的试点版本。拟议的项目将具有强大的商业潜力，因为它将解决实地研究中随访率低的普遍问题，而且有证据表明，这种方法的随访率可能比目前流动人口研究中的典型随访率高出30个百分点（Des Jarlais等人，2005年）。公共卫生相关性：NIDA目前的年度预算超过10亿美元，支持全世界约85%的药物滥用研究。至关重要的是，这些长期药物使用模式和治疗结果的研究至少要达到80%的随访率。基于较低随访率的研究对趋势或结果的估计可能是无效和误导的。因此，该项目通过创造一种产品，提高药物滥用纵向研究的有效性和普遍性，从而更好地了解药物使用的性质以及如何最好地治疗药物滥用，从而直接影响到公众健康。