Behavioral Health Innovations Lab's Ongoing Studies

Smoking and Vaping Cessation

close up of hands holding a mobile phone with a cessation app showing on the screen

E-STOP (R01 CA258669)

Cigarette smoking causes 480,000 premature deaths each year in the United States, of which 36% are due to cancer. Two-thirds of individuals who smoke want to quit, but fewer than one-third make a quit attempt using an evidence-based approach. Consequently, fewer than one in ten individuals who smoke report quitting successfully in the last year. Comprehensive dissemination strategies are needed to increase utilization of evidence-based cessation treatments and improve cessation rates. The E-STOP study is evaluating a proactive, telehealth approach to improving access to high quality smoking cessation treatment within MUSC’s primary care and family medicine clinics.

Study Contact:  Juliana Hayden (haydenju@musc.edu)

INSPIRE (R01 CA268023)

Residents of rural areas are both more likely to smoke cigarettes and less likely to quit than their urban counterparts. Consequently, individuals in rural areas have a 7% higher incidence of tobacco-associated cancers. Comprehensive smoking cessation treatment dissemination strategies are needed to increase utilization of evidence-based treatment, improve cessation outcomes, and ultimately decrease cancer incidence among residents of rural areas who smoke cigarettes. The INSPIRE study is partnering with rural primary care and family medicine clinics across South Carolina to evaluate a proactive, telehealth approach to the delivery of comprehensive smoking cessation treatment.

Study Contact: Katherine Bullard (bullardk@musc.edu)

Telehealth Strategies for Improving Early and Accurate COPD Identification (U66RH31458)

In partnership with MUSC’s Center of Excellence in Telehealth, our team has an ongoing program of research that focuses on extending the reach of early and accurate identification of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a disease which disproportionately impacts individuals who smoke cigarettes. This work has included development of an integrated system to facilitate remote completion of home spirometry that pairs a Bluetooth home spirometry device with REDCap.

Study Contact: Olivia Levins (levins@musc.edu)

Depression Treatment

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Optimizing Care for Cancer Survivors with Depression (OASIS)

One in four cancer survivors suffer from depression, which results in decreased physical and social functioning, worse quality of life, and decreased survival. Current approaches to depression screening, referral, and treatment among cancer survivors are inadequate and limited by barriers at every step. However, a scalable, technology-informed approach could address key barriers to depression treatment and optimize population health outcomes by fundamentally shifting the way in which we deliver care for cancer survivors with depression.

As a next step this goal, the OASIS Program will develop a scalable, technology-informed care delivery paradigm for screening, referring, and treating cancer survivors with depression, evaluate its preliminary effects across a variety of outcomes and establish the programmatic infrastructure necessary to scale this research with larger grants from the National Cancer Institute.

Study Contact: Noelle Natale (natalen@musc.edu)

Evaluation of a Proactive Identification and Digital Mental Health Intervention Approach to Address Unmet Psychosocial Needs of Individuals Living with Likely Incurable Cancer (IMPACT)

Individuals living with advanced cancer experience high rates of depression but oftentimes have limited treatment options. The goal of this line of work is to evaluate a proactive model of care for connecting individuals with advanced cancer to digital depression treatment resources. This study is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Study Contact: Olivia Levins (levins@musc.edu)

Decentralized Clinical Trial Methods

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MyTrials

Decentralized clinical trials aim to increase access to clinical trials by bringing trials to participants rather than bringing participants to trial sites. However, these trials face a key methodological limitation: the need for biomarker collection. Biomarkers often serve as important trial outcomes and/or are used as adjuncts to patient-reported outcomes. Over the last decade, a multitude of Bluetooth-enabled remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices have become available which could allow researchers to capture trial-relevant biomarkers remotely.

The goal of this line of research is to develop, refine, and evaluate an integrated digital RPM solution for decentralized trials (“MyTrials”). To accomplish this goal, we will leverage REDCap, an online research data capture system that is freely available to research institutions. MyTrials will have the ability to be deployed across institutions using REDCap and used either with a single RPM device or with multiple devices.

Study Contact: Noelle Natale (natalen@musc.edu)