Enhancing Follow-up Rates through a Rechargable Incentive Card (RIC) System

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、定位和随访具有代表性的受试者样本是一项挑战。一项对85名药物滥用者进行的纵向研究的荟萃分析发现，近三分之一的受试者在36个月内因自然减员而死亡（汉森，托布勒和格雷厄姆，1990）。这对药物滥用（和相关）领域调查结果的有效性构成了重大威胁，因为已经证明，低于80%的随访率会产生对药物使用和犯罪的严重偏倚估计（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电奖励卡（RIC）系统进行随机现场测试，并执行详细计划，将最终产品和服务商业化。RIC系统包括一个现场发行的借记卡，与一个账户相关联，研究人员可以在后续联系后立即将资金转移到该账户中（无论这涉及电话或面对面访谈，邮寄调查或提供生物样本）。该卡还包含一个免费电话号码，受试者可以使用该号码（每月一次）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入受试者的RIC系统账户。这项技术是通过Calance公司和UCLA综合药物滥用计划（ISAP）之间的密切合作开发的。在第二阶段，同样的合作将完成RIC系统，商业化，并测试其对随访率和工作人员的时间专门跟踪和定位对象的影响，使用的样本药物滥用者（N=300）参加了三个门诊治疗计划在洛杉矶地区。RIC系统可用于许多研究领域的药物、教育、就业和小组研究，但该应用程序在药物滥用研究领域特别有希望，该领域通常涉及巡回的、难以跟踪的受试者，其中许多人有刑事司法史。 公共卫生相关性：NIDA目前的年度预算超过10亿美元，支持全球约85%的药物滥用研究。这些关于长期药物使用模式和治疗结果的研究必须达到至少80%的随访率。基于随访率较低的研究对趋势或结局的估计可能是无效和误导的。因此，该项目通过最终确定、测试和商业化一种产品直接影响公共健康，这种产品提高了纵向药物滥用研究的有效性和普遍性，，从而更好地了解吸毒的性质和如何最好地治疗它。值得注意的是，RIC系统有可能改善以下方面：几乎所有涉及从人类受试者收集纵向数据的研究都提高了利率。

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.