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

该计划赠款旨在通过加强获得医疗保健，服务和资源，为边缘化社区的老年人提供更好的医疗保健，并鼓励他们改变促进健康的行为。该项目设想了一个智能健康访问和资源门户网站（SHARP），它提供了一个界面，个人可以通过该界面获得卫生系统中的护理和资源，以及一个设计，建议和操作虚拟和物理访问的引擎。 该项目的结果将积累有关边缘化社区老年人所面临的现有医疗保健障碍的知识，揭示他们与健康相关的偏好和选择行为，并规定潜在的解决方案，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。 他们还将为未来实施、部署和评估SHARP的综合研究提案奠定基础。 如果成功，参与SHARP试点研究的老年人将看到更好地获得和参与医疗保健系统带来的切实健康益处。 改善老年人的健康状况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，SHARP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和更公平的社会。 研究成果将通过出版物/演讲、与行业合作伙伴的合作以及与各社区利益相关者的参与广泛传播和采用。这种综合研究跨越了社会科学和技术领域。建议的解决方案的核心承诺是一种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），Kaizen Health（KH）和邻里技术中心（CNT）的专家团队，他们在交通和移动系统，计算机工程，行为科学，社会流行病学，人机交互和信息学，医疗保健物流和社区参与方面具有专业知识。 该团队将与由CNT领导的一系列社区合作伙伴合作，以确定和吸引居住在芝加哥南部选定的低收入社区的老年人。 该项目将汇集学术界，行业和社区利益相关者，以（i）通过对话和讨论了解与医疗保健和流动性相关的需求，优先事项和障碍;（ii）评估对集成数字工具的需求，以解决已确定的交通和医疗保健获取挑战，以及（iii）为未来有意义的地方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，倾听会议和调查。该项目将挖掘本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，该理论探讨了移动性与健康之间以及医疗保健可及性与广泛的健康相关行为之间的复杂关系（例如，健康监测和管理）。 他们还将激发新的人机交互方法，旨在揭示老年人目前如何与数字化工具互动，建立这种互动与健康相关行为之间的相关性，并评估他们对SHARP等综合健康工具的需求。 总的来说，该项目将加深我们对以下问题的理解：（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传统和新兴移动服务的体制和技术挑战。该项目还将导致创建一套分析和计算工具，形成SHARP的核心智能。 其中包括（i）人类数字孪生模型和一种新的资源分配模型，分别在个人和系统层面解决虚拟和物理访问之间的选择;以及（ii）数学模型和求解算法，支持综合运输和卫生物流系统的设计和运行。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响评审标准。

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.