Increasing the population-level impact of a digital therapeutic for smokers with psychiatric illness

Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem NC

Investigators

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Abstract

Enter the text here that is the new abstract information for your application. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text. The goal of this Independent Scientist Award (K02) is to seek five years of training and protected time to enable and expand the work of a newly established independent investigator. The candidate’s laboratory, the Access to Behavioral Health for All (ABHA) Lab, is supported by a recent R01 (Parent Study; DA037276; March 2020-2025) that will evaluate the efficacy of a novel digital therapeutic (DTx) for smoking cessation tailored to patients with serious mental illness. The candidate’s research to date has focused on the development of DTx using user-centered design research, and the subsequent testing of their efficacy using clinical trials methodology. However, efficacy trials do not always translate into real-world practice, nor are tested treatments always adopted by all subgroups of a population. This gap is well documented in the implementation science literature. In a recent epidemiological study (N=40,181) we showed differential rates of smoking decline among Americans with serious psychological distress over the last decade. This data accentuates the critical need to develop DTx that have a wider population health impact. Therefore, the five years of protected time provided by this Independent Scientist Award will fundamentally enhance the candidate’s current program of research by providing formal training and contact with expert collaborators in the following key areas: (1) community health and participatory research, (2) implementation science, and (3) DTx’s oversight, marketing, and dissemination. The award will also support a convergent mixed-methods Ancillary Study based on the RE-AIM framework, that will examine community health and implementation science outcomes in the Parent Study. This award will provide the necessary research experience and network of collaborators to scale up widespread dissemination of DTx for individuals with tobacco use disorder and serious mental illness. This award will also establish the conditions to pursue and maintain this program of research in the future by protecting the candidate’s time from clinical responsibilities. In the short term, the award will generate preliminary data to inform the design of a large pragmatic trial that will evaluate the dissemination of DTx for all Americans with tobacco use disorder and serious mental illness. In the long term the award will generate a new body of research rigorously examining social drivers and barriers of health in DTx for addiction treatment, a new model for the widespread implementation and technology transfer of these DTx, and mentoring opportunities for junior scientists that will extend the impact of this work beyond the candidate’s own program of research.