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: 8200668
• 负责人: DAVID J FARABEE
• 金额: $ 60.12万
• 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 2014-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8200668
• 关键词: Accounting; Achievement; Addictive Behavior; Affect; Area; Biological; Budgets; Businesses; Chronic; Client; Collaborations; Collection; Computer software; Consensus; Crime; Criminal Justice; Data; Databases; Development; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Education; Employment; Enrollment; Feasibility Studies; Funding; Gifts; Goals; Grant; Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; Incentives; Industry; Institution; Interview; Laundering; Link; Longitudinal Studies; Los Angeles; Mails; Meta-Analysis; Methods; National Institute of Drug Abuse; Nature; Outcome; Outpatients; Pattern; Persons; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Phase; Pilot Projects; Population; Procedures; Public Health; Randomized; Recording of previous events; Regulation; Relapse; Research; Research Personnel; Sampling; Services; Site; Small Business Technology Transfer Research; Spottings; Substance abuse problem; Surveys; System; Technology; Technology Transfer; Telephone; Testing; Time; Treatment outcome; base; commercialization; cost; design; experience; field study; follow-up; human subject; improved; innovation; payment; programs; prospective; substance abuser; treatment program; trend

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 II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) proposal is to conduct a randomized field test of the rechargeable incentive card (RIC) system developed in Phase I, and to execute a detailed plan to commercialize the finalized set of products and services. The RIC System involves an on-the-spot issued 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 also contains 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, results in an automatic transfer of funds to the subjects' RIC System account. This technology was developed though a close collaboration between the Calance Corporation and the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs (ISAP). In Phase II, this same collaborative will finalize the RIC System, commercialize it, and test its impact on follow-up rates and staff time devoted to tracking and locating subjects, using a sample of substance abusers (N=300) enrolled in three outpatient treatment programs in the Los Angeles area. The RIC System could be employed in studies involving medication, education, employment, and panel studies in many research areas, but the application holds particular promise in the field of substance abuse research which often involves itinerant, hard-to-track subjects-many of whom have criminal justice histories. 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 finalizing, testing, and commercializing 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. It should be noted that the RIC System has the potential to improve follow-up rates for virtually any study that involves collection of longitudinal data from human subjects.

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）。第二阶段小企业技术转让（STTR）提案的目的是对第一阶段开发的可充值奖励卡（RIC）系统进行随机现场测试，并执行一项详细计划，将最终确定的一套产品和服务商业化。RIC系统包括一张现场发放的借记卡，该借记卡与一个账户相关联，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）。卡片还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。这也会导致资金自动转移到受试者的RIC系统账户。这项技术是通过卡兰斯公司和加州大学洛杉矶分校综合药物滥用计划（ISAP）之间的密切合作开发的。在第二阶段，同样的合作将最终确定RIC系统，将其商业化，并使用洛杉矶地区三个门诊治疗项目登记的药物滥用者样本（N=300）测试其对随访率和工作人员用于跟踪和定位受试者的时间的影响。RIC系统可用于涉及药物、教育、就业和许多研究领域的小组研究，但在药物滥用研究领域的应用前景特别好，因为药物滥用研究通常涉及流动的、难以追踪的受试者——其中许多人有刑事司法史。