HSR&D Senior Research Career Scientist Award

Wm S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hosp, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The Senior Research Career Scientist (SRCS) award will support Dr. Corrine Voils to further contribute her scientific, mentoring, and service capabilities to the VA. Her research focuses on identifying effective behavioral strategies to promote maintenance of health behaviors to improve health outcomes. She conducts rigorous randomized trials to evaluate theoretically based interventions for weight loss maintenance. She is also leading development, validation, and dissemination of a self-report measure of medication nonadherence. Since 2005, Dr. Voils has maintained a diverse portfolio of VA and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. She has been awarded over $13 million dollars as a Principal Investigator (PI) and another $32 million as Co-Investigator. She is currently PI of 1) a single-site randomized trial to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of a participant-only to partner-assisted intervention for long-term weight loss and 2) a multi-site trial to evaluate the effectiveness of providing variable financial incentives for dietary self-monitoring, weight loss, or both compared with no incentives for weight loss initiation and maintenance. She is also Multiple PI of the KL2 career development program at the University of Wisconsin’s (UW) Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, which provides a series of professional development seminars and workshops to VA and non-VA career development awardees. In the past three years, Dr. Voils has been first or senior author on 30 manuscripts and coauthor on another 28; more than half of these have been with mentees. In recognition of her scientific contributions, Dr. Voils was elected in 2014 as a Fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. In addition to leading an innovative research program, Dr. Voils has a unique skillset that makes her a highly pursued collaborator and mentor in behavioral theory, intervention development, measurement and survey design, randomized trials, and qualitative methodology. She have been a Co-Investigator or mentor on more than 35 projects funded by VA, NIH, AHRQ, and non-federal sources. These studies have spanned the areas of medication management, hypertension and diabetes self-management, colorectal cancer screening, palliative care, smoking cessation, surgery, caregiving, and infection control. Dr. Voils is building capacity for health services research at her institution and beyond through individual mentoring and leadership. She has been primary mentor for four career development awardees and a mentoring team member for several others. Several mentees have transitioned to independence. Dr. Voils provides service to benefit the VA through committee membership, peer-review, and leadership. Since 2011 she has served as the only VA faculty member at the NIH Summer Institute on Design and Conduct of Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions. This Institute provides early- career faculty with didactic training and consultation regarding design and implementation of trials of behavioral interventions. A VA perspective is critical for VA attendees. As a KL2 Director, Dr. Voils provides the VA perspective to the program, which directly supports VA career development awardees through its programming. As Director of the Wisconsin Surgical Outcomes Research program, Dr. Voils is responsible for building capacity for conducting surgical health services research inside and outside the VA. Dr. Voils’ specific aims for the SRCS award period include: 1) conduct innovative, high-impact studies that inform VA clinical practice regarding effective interventions for weight loss maintenance, 2) disseminate and apply mentoring best practices by offering mentor and mentee training workshops, publishing papers on application of these principles in career development award communities, and increasing the number of career development awardees at her site and nationally, and 3) continue and expand service to VA through committee service, peer review, and facilitation of cross-site collaborations for health services researchers in the Midwest and beyond.