The objectives are to (1) provide a definitive test of activity space versus residential neighborhood environmental explanations for diet/physical activity (PA) variations during mid-life, (2) employ cutting-edge geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment to address environmental mis-measurement ubiquitous in prior research, and (3) for the first time, provide evidence on activity space environmental contributions to within-person daily/momentary variations in diet/PA, and how they interact with personal trait and state factors.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Project Duration
2023-09-25 — 2028-05-31
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to be a major public health problem for Black girls in the United States. Each year 1 in 4 Black girls, 14-19 years old acquires an STI, placing them at risk for poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes (SRH) (i.e., pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, HIV/AIDS). In Chicago, STI rates are highest among 13- to 29-year-old Black girls, and they represent 56% of new HIV diagnoses compared to other racial groups, making adolescence an exceptionally vulnerable period. These racial disparities require new and innovative strategies to reduce Black girls’ negative SRH outcomes...
The overall goal of the project is to evaluate the effect of a multi-level health information technology (MHIT) intervention that addresses patient-, provider-, and socioeconomic-related barriers to hypertension management for Black people with hypertension. The MHIT intervention leverages the patient portal (MyChart), electronic health record (Epic), and community resource referral system (Unite Us) to improve hypertension outcomes...
This R21’s innovative approach to these outstanding questions involves performing an integrated analysis of breast cancer survivors’ serum and fecal metabolome and microbiome before and after an acupuncture intervention. The goal is to understand the effect and mechanism of acupuncture in treating the PN symptom cluster among breast cancer survivors.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Project Duration
2021-08-20 — 2026-04-30
African American population is projected to increase up to 18% by 2060 in the US and as the population increases, the deleterious effects of maternal hyperglycemia will also. Sleep disparities exist in African American pregnant women and can lead to disparities in maternal hyperglycemia and related maternal and fetal complications of pregnancy. This innovative study using individually tailored, culturally adapted intervention has the potential to advance science, reduce hyperglycemia, improve glucose metabolism, and improve maternal-fetal well-being by demonstrating the effectiveness of sleep BETTER intervention.
After a 30-year decline, heart disease is projected to increase up to 18% by 2030. Participation rates in cardiac rehabilitation remain extremely low and hopeless individuals are less likely to participate. This innovative study has the potential to advance science, improve patient care, and improve patient outcomes by demonstrating the effectiveness of the Heart Up! program to increase physical activity and reduce hopelessness in patients with heart disease.
National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive & Kidney Disorders
Project Duration
2022-05-01 — 2027-04-30
Older adults with chronic kidney disease (CKD) present on the spectrum of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) approximately 10 years earlier than age and sex matched controls. The prevalence of accelerated age-related cognitive decline and dementia is remarkably high in older adults with CKD, affecting as many as 20-50%. there is a pressing need to develop non-pharmacological therapies to prevent or forestall cognitive decline in older adults with CKD at risk for ADRD. The objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that a 6-month home-based walking exercise program in 116 older adults with CKD and MCI will improve executive function, cognitive subdomains, brain white matter integrity, structure, and functional connectivity compared to attention control.
Physical inactivity is associated with poor asthma control and quality of life, and greater health care utilization. Rates of physical inactivity, asthma, and asthma mortality among African American (AA) women are higher than those of their White counterparts. Our formative work identified barriers to PA among African American women with asthma including a lack of social support, self-efficacy, unsafe neighborhood and fear related to experiences with life-threatening asthma exacerbations. Given the unique barriers to PA and high rates of physical inactivity that are associated with poor asthma outcomes in African American women, there is an urgent need to optimize PA interventions for this population...
The Yurok Tribe, the largest surviving federally recognized Tribe in California, continues to endure the sequelae of a colonial invasion that perpetrated massacres and assaulted the surviving children through abductions and forcing children into indentured slavery and boarding schools. These traumas disrupted culture-based protective factors, community systems, and parenting knowledge, which increased psychosocial risk and health disparities. Today Native Americans die at higher rates than other Americans in many categories, including liver disease, diabetes, injuries, homicide, self-harm, and chronic respiratory diseases. The suicide rate for Native/Indigenous adolescents is more than double that of non-Hispanic Whites.
Our goal is to examine whether Melanated Group Midwifery Care (MGMC), a culturally-adapted, patient-centered maternity care model, attenuates the impact of structural racism on Black pregnant and postpartum women by assessing whether increased health system trust leads to enhanced patient engagement. MGMC packages four evidence-based interventions that specifically address care gaps that disproportionately impact Black women. MGMC maintains patient-provider racial concordance in a group prenatal setting with an extensive nurse case management system that actively coordinates medical referrals and wrap-around services, including in-home postpartum support. We compare MGMC to individualized prenatal and postpartum care. We hypothesize Black women assigned to MGMC will have higher health system trust that will lead to more engagement and positively affect a range of outcomes through 12 months postpartum compared to Black women receiving individualized care.
Chicago is an HIV epicenter, and Getting to Zero (GTZ) new HIV infections by 2030 is a public health priority. Black cisgender, heterosexual women (Black women) in Chicago have rates of HIV acquisition over 10 times the rate of white women, and four times the rate of Hispanic women, making Black women a priority population. Although Black women comprise 37% of Chicago’s population, they account for 79% of HIV infections among women in Chicago. Improving access to and uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among Black women is essential to ending the US HIV epidemic and reducing new infections by 90% by 2030...
There is an urgent need for innovative approaches that support the use of Preexposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a daily pill preventing HIV that is empowering and user-controlled. Using a participatory implementation science framework, I will test whether an adapted and community empowered group healthcare model, Centering PrEP+, is a feasible and acceptable health system intervention to improve the health of sex workers and their clients by increasing PrEP adherence.
Illinois Cancer Health Equity Research (I-CHER) Center
Project Duration
2023-03-01 — 2024-06-30
We propose examining the feasibility and acceptability of a FIM intervention for hypertensive Black BCS with obesity to increase access to healthy foods and promote healthy eating and blood pressure control. Our intervention, FIM+BCS, is adapted from an existing FIM program called Mi Care DM conducted at UIC’s Mile Square federally qualified health centers (FQHCs).17 Mi Care DM provided a prescription for fresh produce grown at a local farm in parallel with chronic disease risk reduction education to patients with type 2 diabetes. The program demonstrated a trend toward decreasing blood pressure and a decrease in BMI for 53.1% of the patient participants...
Avoidance of advance care planning (ACP) discussions and failure to complete advance directives can delay the introduction of palliative and hospice care and risk patients receiving costly and aggressive care at the end of life. ACP is a process to facilitate decision-making for future medical care and document values and preferences. Despite the proven benefits of ACP—in achieving satisfying, goalconcordant care at the end of life, better communication, and better quality of death—less than 15% of Chinese Americans complete advance directives. That is less than half of the 37% completion rate in the US general population. This disparity in the use of ACP between White Americans and Chinese Americans may extend to disparities in end-of-life care, including rates of hospice use and prevalence of unwanted aggressive treatments...
This IRSP pilot study will determine whether or not a newly developed game-based intervention has the potential to improve communication, negotiation skills, emotional regulation, and dating violence behaviors among LGBTQ+ youth and young adults. Reducing Adverse Dating Outcomes (RADOS!) is a social media simulation game focused on addressing
identity-based stress, emotional regulation, and equipping youth with skills to maintain healthy relationships.We will 1) build and translate evidence-based content into a 30-minute digital simulation game prototype. 2) the team will conduct iterative usability and feasibility testing of a 30-minute simulation prototype.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Project Duration
2017-09-01 — 2024-05-31
Our goal is to demonstrate the effects of acupuncture for the pain of vulvodynia by performing the first double-blind randomized controlled trial of acupuncture as a treatment method. Evidence from this study will aid in assessing the duration of the treatment effect of acupuncture thus providing insights about need of maintenance treatment to control pain and dyspareunia. Findings will inform future studies for a pragmatic trial and translation to practice.
Despite a notable 32.7% decline in mortality from ischemic heart disease (IHD) since 1999,the prevalence of stable angina has not decreased. Stable angina is defined as predictable chest pain on exertion or under mental or emotional stress. Stable angina signifies partial obstruction of coronary flow or microvascular changes and comes with substantial lifetime consequences including heart failure, atrial fibrillation, reinfarction, and cardiac arrest. Nearly 9 million Americans have stable angina and heart disease is now the leading disability-adjusted disease globally. Stable angina is associated with multiple symptoms, impaired functional status, and reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL)...
Patients with advanced cancer experience high levels of anxiety and depression and other barriers that affect their advance care planning discussions with their family caregivers. There have been few clinical trials focusing on resilience-building interventions for empowering patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers to initiate advance care planning discussions and sustain engagement. This research will provide new insights into the barriers and facilitators associated with advance care planning while developing and evaluating a resilience-building intervention to improve knowledge, self-efficacy, resilience, anxiety, and depression for patients with advanced cancer and their family caregivers.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
Project Duration
2022-08-23 — 2025-05-31
People attending federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) typically have limited access to acupuncture, an evidence-based symptom management intervention. This study will assess the feasibility of implementing acupuncture at an FQHC to alleviate multiple symptoms experienced by breast cancer survivors during endocrine therapy. Long-term, this study is the first step toward ensuring equal access to this evidence-based intervention. Results will provide the foundation for rigorous studies to test the effectiveness of integrating acupuncture into FQHC oncology clinic to support medically underserved breast cancer survivors.
Pregnant women in the U.S. are prescribed a daily prenatal supplement containing iron to prevent iron deficiency anemia (IDA), a condition associated with adverse maternal and neonatal health. However, this one-size-fits-all approach to preventing IDA may not be appropriate for women with inflammation, including obese women. We propose to test oral lactoferrin along with a prenatal supplement devoid of iron in obese pregnant women to assess whether it is feasible, acceptable, and potentially more effective at preventing IDA than a traditional daily prenatal supplement containing iron.