Research Project
10268734
OVERALL CORE CENTER PROJECT SUMMARY Digital therapeutics that deliver science-based, behavior change interventions targeting substance use disorders (SUDs) and related issues (including HIV risk behavior and mental health disorders) can markedly improve access to care, quality of care, and treatment outcomes, while reducing costs, for a wide array of audiences in diverse settings. Our interdisciplinary group received a P30 ?Center of Excellence? grant from NIDA 9 years ago to launch a new research center (the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health [CTBH]). CTBH has led the field in the development, empirical testing, and implementation of digital therapeutics targeting SUDs and related issues. In this renewal application, we propose to build on this work and grow activities to address the most timely and significant research priorities for the field to: (1) enhance our collaborative work with a wide array of scientific, clinical, industry, and governmental partners to scale access to science-based digital therapeutics across the U.S. and beyond; (2) expand activities to link CTBH?s innovative research in digital health measurement to inform personalized digital therapeutics; (3) accelerate research and mentorship on transdiagnostic digital treatments for substance use and co-occurring mental and physical health conditions (CODs); (4) expand research and resources on digital health ethics and (5) broaden the diversity and inclusiveness of digital health researchers by increasing mentorship and representativeness of underrepresented minorities in digital health research. The Overall Aim of the P30 Center is: To integrate expertise across multiple disciplines and provide an infrastructure to enhance the quality, pace of achievement, and impact of innovative scientific research that combines science-based behavior change interventions with state-of-the-science technologies to create, evaluate, and disseminate digital therapeutics targeting SUDs and co-occurring disorders (CODs). CTBH will achieve this Aim via 5 Cores: (1) The Treatment Development and Evaluation Core will provide resources and training to enhance the quality, efficiency, and impact of research and support mechanisms to accelerate the state-of-the science of digital health assessments and therapeutics (2) The Dissemination and Implementation Core will disseminate research methods and findings and advance a scientific understanding of successful implementation of digital therapeutics in diverse settings, (3) The Emerging Technologies and Data Analytics Core will enhance education and research on the application of emerging technologies and data analytics to digital therapeutics and support shared resources to enhance the pace of development, and potency of, digital therapeutics, (4) The Pilot Core will support the development of new areas of research that could progress to larger-scale testing via external funding after the pilot phase, and (5) The Administrative Core will provide programmatic leadership that ensures successful coordination of activities across Cores and an infrastructure to enhance synergy among our interdisciplinary team.
