Developing Interactive Technologies to Improve Research and Health Behavior

描述(由申请者提供)：开发互动技术以改善研究和健康行为。背景：不健康行为的高比率是许多给美国人带来负担的慢性病的基础。源于行为经济学理论的干预措施在提高健康行为比率方面显示出了希望，但这些干预措施通常需要频繁(通常是日常)接触。信息技术(IT)平台可以促进参与者跟踪、使用基于家庭的设备、反馈和自动支付系统进行监控，但创建这样一个平台对于任何一项研究来说都过于昂贵。目标：该项目的主要目标是设计、构建、测试和改进一个IT平台，该平台将：1)为研究人员提供一个易于定制的基于网络的平台，以评估促进健康的行为干预措施，包括使用经济激励、频繁的反馈、信息的可视化方法和社交网络；2)为美国老年人、其他普通公众以及公共和私营部门组织提供一个门户网站，该门户网站可以促进参与行为方法的创新研究，以低增量成本改善健康行为。设计和方法：该平台将由宾夕法尼亚大学(医学院、沃顿商学院、沃顿计算和生物医学信息学联盟)的教职员工以及当地的网络开发人员组成的团队在两年内开发和测试。该平台将由客户端层、应用层、数据库层和支持硬件组成，这些硬件完全集成，并具有内置的灵活性，可以与家庭健康监测、在线社交网络、手机短信以及iPhone等具有专门健康促进应用的设备等领域的现有和新技术相连接。该平台还将与金融服务和支付供应商整合，包括贝宝、万事达卡和VISA。在第二年，将部署一系列试点项目，以测试该系统的每一项功能及其可行性，特别是在老年人中。影响：尽管行为经济学方法在理论上有望改善健康行为，但由于需要频繁接触和加强，实施往往代价高昂。这些成本既阻碍了研究这些方法的研究，也阻碍了现有研究发现有效的方法的部署。拟议的IT基础设施将提供一个最先进的平台，在此平台上构建、测试和部署大规模行为干预研究，并在行为经济学和健康的交叉点推动科学进步。此外，该项目将为费城地区创造高科技就业机会做出重大贡献。目前的提案将在短期内创造或保留20个就业机会。从长远来看，该平台的存在将使无数额外的研究项目成为可能，并加快科学进步的步伐，从而带来额外的高科技高薪工作和改善健康状况。 与公共健康的相关性：拟议的IT基础设施将提供一个最先进的平台，在此平台上构建、测试和部署大规模行为干预研究，并在行为经济学和健康的交叉点推动科学发展。我们将提供这个门户与各种基于家庭和手持健康测量设备之间的联系，促进干预性研究，以改善老年人慢性病的管理。此外，该项目将为费城地区创造面向未来的高科技工作岗位做出重大贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Developing interactive technologies to improve research and health behavior. Context: High rates of unhealthy behaviors underlie many of the chronic conditions that burden Americans. Interventions derived from theories of behavioral economics have shown promise in increasing the rate of healthy behaviors, but these interventions typically require frequent (often daily) contact. An information technology (IT) platform can facilitate participant tracking, monitoring using home-based devices, feedback, and automated payment systems, but creating such a platform would be too expensive for any one study. Objective: The primary objectives of this project are to design, build, test, and refine an IT platform that will: 1) provide investigators an easily customized web-based platform to evaluate behavioral interventions to promote health, including the use of financial incentives, frequent feedback, visual approaches to information, and social networks; 2) provide older Americans, other members of the general public, and public and private sector organizations with a web portal which can facilitate participation in innovative research on behavioral approaches to improve health behavior at low incremental cost. Design and Methods: The platform will be developed and tested over two years by a team composed of faculty and staff from the University of Pennsylvania (School of Medicine, the Wharton School, Wharton Computing, and the Biomedical Informatics Consortium), as well as local web developers. The platform will consist of a client layer, an application layer, a database layer, and supporting hardware which are fully integrated and have the built-in flexibility to connect with existing and new technologies in the areas of home health monitoring, online social networking, text messaging to cell phones, and devices with specialized health promotion applications such as iPhones. The platform will also integrate with financial service and payment vendors, including PayPal, MasterCard, and VISA. In the second year, a portfolio of pilot projects will be fielded to test each of the functionalities of the system and their feasibility, particularly in older adults. Impact: Despite the theoretical promise of behavioral economic approaches to improve health behaviors, implementation is often costly because of the need for frequent contact and reinforcement. Those costs hamper both research investigating these approaches and the deployment of approaches found by existing research to be effective. The proposed IT infrastructure will provide a state-of-the-art platform on which to build, test, and deploy large-scale behavioral intervention studies and advance the science at the intersection of behavioral economics and health. In addition, this project will contribute significantly to the creation of high tech jobs in the Philadelphia region. The current proposal will create or retain twenty jobs in the near term. In the long-term, the existence of the platform will enable innumerable additional research projects and accelerate the pace of scientific advances leading to additional high tech high wage jobs and improved health. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed IT infrastructure will provide a state-of-the-art platform on which to build, test, and deploy large- scale behavioral intervention studies and advance the science at the intersection of behavioral economics and health. We will provide linkages between this portal and a variety of home-based and hand-held health measurement devices, facilitating interventional studies to improve management of chronic disease among older adults. In addition, this project will contribute significantly to the creation of future-looking high technology jobs in the Philadelphia region.