Research

When we say, "Better health. For all. Now," we mean it! While health behavior interventions are critical mechanisms to reduce inequities in disease prevention and care, it takes—on average—17 years (Ruben, 2023) for evidence to result in changed practice and policies to improve health outcomes. By combining phased intervention models like the NIH Stage model and AHRQ system engineering models, the CHxD aims to reduce the discovery-to-delivery pipeline gap.

Our interdisciplinary teams apply human-centered design and evaluation principles to ensure that health behavior interventions are accessible, usable, useful, acceptable, adhered to, and ultimately lead to downstream efficacy, effectiveness, and implementation trials to address disease prevention and care. To this end, the CHxD supports faculty research through collaboratories that bring together interdisciplinary teams to brainstorm solutions to chronic disease prevention and care, provide support for extramural grant applications, and resources to support faculty mentorship, collaboration, and recognition.

Examples of Member Research Projects

Rich

Nicole Werner, Ph.D.

The goal of this grant is to establish SafeCare@Home4Kids as a multidisciplinary Patient Safety Learning Laboratory to develop innovative, effective, and equitable approaches to prevent HHC safety errors and adverse events experienced by children with medical complexity of different racial/ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

The goal of this grant is to design and develop A-SHIFT, a toolkit that will provide healthcare systems practical guidance regarding how to systematically identify, assess, and train care partners of hospitalized people living with ADRD.

During this FastTrack project, we will conduct deep discovery of legal planning and financial management needs of ADRD caregivers and field test an AI-enabled solution. We anticipate our solution approach will support financial stability through delivery of personalized and actionable training, reduce caregiver stress, and potentially improve quality of life within the care partnership.

Rich

Richard Holden, Ph.D.

Lab website

Brain Safe is a five-year randomized controlled trial supported by a $3.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The trial tests the Brain Safe app as an intervention for reducing exposure to medications whose use is linked with dementia.

The R2D2 trial, led by Dr. Noll Campbell of Purdue University, is a pharmacist-based intervention to deprescribe anticholinergic medications. R2D2 is a randomized trial to determine if a pharmacist-based, anticholinergic deprescribing intervention improves cognition and lowers the risk of dementia in primary care older adults with subjective cognitive dysfunction.

The broad goal of the BSL is to prevent harm to brain health among older adults through two projects: 1) reducing the use of unsafe medications with anticholinergic side effects; and 2) preventing repeated episodes of hypoglycemia among older adults with diabetes. BSL employs an iterative, user-centered process for problem assessment, solution design, and evaluation.

Hank

Hank Green, Ph.D.

Misty

Misty Hawkins, Ph.D.

This study aims to develop a healthful culturally appropriate diet (the Midwestern Diet) composed of recipes specific to the Midwest (test case is the south-central Indiana region) which include pork (and recipes from National Pork Board) and to test acceptability and attitudes toward this locally informed diet in comparison to the Mediterranean diet that limits pork

This study aims to address inequities by inviting Black breast cancer survivors with obesity to contribute their voice to development of a weight-related intervention for successful survivorship and then test preliminary feasibility/acceptability and efficacy.

Austin

Evan Jordan, Ph.D.

Lab website

This study aims to identify and understand the role of environmental stressors in the development of Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) and related health inequities across urban and rural populations.

In this Stage 0 study of the NIH Stage Model for Behavioral Intervention Development, we propose to use our novel custom-built Stress Reports in Free-living Environments (STRIVE) ecological momentary assessment (EMA) mobile phone app to measure the experience of daily stress of mid-life adults in free-living conditions.

The objectives of our proposed research are threefold: (1) to co-design a mobile acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) stress intervention collaboratively with cancer survivors (called MOSAIC); (2) to conduct an NIH Stage Model for Behavioral Intervention Development Stage IA study to test and refine MOSAIC with approximately 15 cancer survivors for accuracy and use; (3) to conduct a Stage IB pilot test to examine feasibility of a larger scale randomized controlled trial.

Corey

Corey Kalbaugh, Ph.D.

We aim to identify deficits in the receipt of guideline-indicated care among Black patients with symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD). We further endeavor to identify the specific role of physician implicit bias in the delivery of symptomatic PAD-related care and to develop a systems-based intervention to address disparate care delivery. In successfully completing this project, we will have preliminary data to support the development of a full-scale, multi-site intervention.

melissapangelinan

Melissa Pangelinan, Ph.D.

I examine the implementation context, process, and outcomes of health interventions (e.g., healthcare coordination, lifestyle interventions) to improve health in adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including Down syndrome. Funded by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration). Learn more here: https://medicine.iu.edu/pediatrics/specialties/general-community/clinical-care/complex-care-coordination

I apply Agile Innovation to increase the involvement of diverse community members throughout all stages of research – planning, execution, evaluation, and communication. Learn more here: https://allinforhealth.info/

Edmond

Edmond Ramly, Ph.D.

The overall objective of this proposal is to develop and pilot a configurable toolkit for CVD prevention. Four CVD quality metrics will be targeted: blood pressure control for patients with hypertension, and aspirin, statins, and smoking cessation for patients with coronary artery disease. The specific aims are to: 1) characterize barriers to implementation of CVD guidelines in primary care after telehealth expansion, 2) develop a configurable toolkit of strategies to address local barriers, and 3) pilot test the toolkit to assess reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance, including subgroup differences.

Austin

Austin Robinson, Ph.D.

Lab website

  • The primary focus of Dr. Robinson’s NIH Career Development Award is determining whether there are racial differences in the cardiovascular responses to a high-salt meal (NCT04244604).
  • We have a pending study focused on a hydration intervention (with or without dietary potassium) to improve blood pressure regulation and cardiometabolic health in young Black adults (NCT06062017).

  • We have an ongoing study focused on short-term sleep extension as a feasible strategy to improve cardiometabolic health and appetite regulation young adults who report inadequate sleep (NCT05918744)
  • We have an ongoing study focused on the ability of concomitant ketone supplementation to counteract the potential adverse effects of short-term high salt on blood vessel function, blood pressure regulation, and kidney function (NCT05545501)

We have two ongoing studies examining the acute and short-term ability of the mitochondrial-targeted antioxidant MitoQ to improve measures of cardiovascular health (NCT04334135 & NCT05561556).

Molly

Molly Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Our overarching goal is to expand our successful data linkage platform to identify the optimal amounts, durations, target recipients, and adult life course periods whereby cash transfer income may protect against later-life ADRD. We aim to 1) determine the role of access to cash transfers accumulated across the adult life course at the individual- and household-levels in slowing later-life memory decline, reducing ADRD risk, and promoting cognitive reserve; 2) determine the relative importance of adult life course timing and trajectories of household access to cash transfers for memory decline, ADRD risk, and cognitive reserve; and, 3) compare later-life asset ownership and expenditures on cognitively stimulating resources across households according to their accumulated access to cash transfers.

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