Optimizing a Social Connectedness Intervention for Young Adults with Cancer

项目总结/摘要 患有癌症的年轻人需要量身定制的行为干预措施来改善他们的心理健康。任何 成年早期的癌症诊断会造成使人衰弱的生活中断，增加社会孤立， 会损害心理健康。社会隔离也预示着死亡率与其他人一样高- 已确定的风险因素包括吸烟、过度饮酒、肥胖和久坐状态。 这一结论--被描述为“毫不含糊”--是由一项大规模的荟萃分析确立的，现在又为 呼吁为弱势群体提供低成本和可扩展的行为干预措施， 社会联系对于患有癌症的年轻人来说，这种干预措施的需求尤其迫切， 他们的独特需求长期得不到满足这项工作的总体目标是优化 对年轻癌症患者进行基于证据的社会联系干预，并测试其是否有所改善 他们的心理健康这种干预，提供数字和有效的年轻人（非癌症 样本），促使个人提高他们的亲身社交接触的情感质量。我们的多- 学科团队将进行严格的，随机对照试验-保持社会RCT-使用我们的 模拟社交媒体平台，为年轻癌症患者提供优化的干预信息， 收集日常经验和心理社会健康结果的重复测量。该方案 研究旨在实现三个具体目标。具体目标1是优化我们的社会联系 对年轻癌症患者的干预。这一目标将通过以人为本的传播科学来实现 方法，以加强积极接受健康信息与社会背景线索（人的形象，同伴 故事），并与400名患有癌症的年轻人进行在线实验，以确定最有效的 用于保持社交RCT的干预消息。具体目标2是试点，进行，并分析 保持社会RCT，以测试我们通过社交媒体提供的社会联系干预是否有所改善 青年癌症患者的心理健康经过彻底的试点测试，这一目标将通过以下方式实现： 我们的安慰剂对照保持社交RCT在六周内重复评估。这些数据可以让我们 测试我们的干预是否提高了社会和情感幸福感（主要结果）， 复原力和消极的心理健康症状（次要结果）。具体目标3是扩展数据 分析AIM 2保持社会RCT，以测试基于理论的机制，并探索 干预的有效性，为进一步优化铺平道路。这一目标将通过统计建模来实现 确定我们的社会联系干预如何以及为谁改善了 年轻的癌症患者。我们的多学科团队汇集了社会心理学，情感， 科学，传播科学和肿瘤学追求这些目标，以产生预防准备务实 提高美国年轻癌症患者的生活质量。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Young adults with cancer need tailored behavioral interventions to improve their psychosocial health. Any cancer diagnosis in early adulthood can create debilitating life disruptions that increase social isolation that in turn can compromise psychosocial health. Social isolation also predicts mortality comparably to other well- established risk factors, including tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, and sedentary status. This conclusion—described as “unequivocal”—was established by a large-scale meta-analysis and now fuels the call for low-cost and scalable behavioral interventions optimized for vulnerable populations to increase social connectedness. The demand for such interventions is especially pressing for young adults with cancer, whose unique needs have long gone unmet. The broad, overarching objective of this work is to optimize an evidence-based social connectedness intervention for young adults with cancer and test whether it improves their psychosocial health. This intervention, delivered digitally and effective among young adults (noncancer samples), prompts individuals to increase the emotional quality of their in-person social encounters. Our multi- disciplinary team will carry out a rigorous, randomized controlled trial—the Keep Social RCT—using our simulated social media platform to deliver intervention messages optimized for young adults with cancer while collecting repeated measures of day-to-day experiences and psychosocial health outcomes. This program of research is designed to meet three specific aims. SPECIFIC AIM 1 is to optimize our social connectedness intervention for young adults with cancer. This aim will be met using a human-centered communication science approach to enhance the positive reception of health messages with social context cues (human imagery, peer stories), and conduct an online experiment with 400 young adults with cancer to identify the most effective intervention messages for use in the Keep Social RCT. SPECIFIC AIM 2 is to pilot, conduct, and analyze the Keep Social RCT to test whether our social connectedness intervention, delivered via social media, improves psychosocial health in young adults with cancer. After thorough pilot testing, this aim will be met by conducting our placebo controlled Keep Social RCT with repeated assessments over six weeks. These data will allow us to test whether our intervention raises social and emotional well-being (primary outcomes) and improves resilience and negative mental health symptoms (secondary outcomes). SPECIFIC AIM 3 is to extend data analyses of the AIM 2 Keep Social RCT to test theory-based mechanisms and explore moderators of intervention effectiveness to pave the way for further optimization. This aim will be met with statistical modeling to identify how and for whom our social connectedness intervention improves psychosocial health among young adults with cancer. Our multi-disciplinary team brings together expertise in social psychology, emotion science, communication science, and oncology to pursue these aims to produce translation-ready pragmatic knowledge to improve the quality of life among young adults with cancer in the United States.