MObile health interVention to INcrease activity in Heart Failure (MOVIN-HF)

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Candidate: Jessica Golbus, MD, MS is a heart failure (HF) and transplant cardiologist at the University of Michigan. Her long-term goal is to use mobile health (mHealth) technologies to deliver personalized, lifestyle interventions to patients with chronic cardiovascular diseases (CVD) to support them in longitudinal disease self-management. This proposal builds on Dr. Golbus’s prior mHealth research, providing her with protected time to train in behavioral health theory, user-centered design, and mHealth study design. Environment and Career Development Plan: The training and research activities will be conducted at the University of Michigan, a world-class scientific environment that promotes multi-disciplinary collaboration. The research will be completed under the mentorship of primary mentor Brahmajee Nallamothu, MD, MPH and co- mentors Kenneth Resnicow, PhD and Predrag Klasnja, PhD who are leaders in cardiovascular and mHealth research, behavioral health theory, and user-centered design, respectively. This will be complemented by a scientific advisory board with expertise in clinical trials, community-based participatory research, statistical methods for mHealth studies, and HF. The 5-year plan includes didactic coursework, mentored research, and professional development activities, with defined milestones to ensure successful transition to independence. Background: Through this career development award, Dr. Golbus proposes to address the important clinical problem of physical inactivity in HF patients. While increased physical activity reduces hospitalizations and improves quality-of-life in this population, many HF patients participate insufficiently in physical activity. Existing strategies to increase physical activity levels have not accounted for the unique needs of HF patients, such as time-varying biological and psychosocial factors impacting activity levels, or are resource-intensive. There is thus a need for innovative strategies to increase physical activity for HF patients. Research: The overarching goals of this proposal are two-fold. First, it will characterize real-time factors impacting physical activity participation in a diverse cohort of HF patients using mHealth technologies, which will then be used to design and pilot a physical activity just-in-time adaptive intervention. The proposal’s 3 Specific Aims are as follows. Aim 1: Characterize real-time factors impacting physical activity in HF patients using mHealth technology (training aim: behavioral health theory). Aim 2: Employ user-centered design methods to adapt an existing mHealth intervention for HF (training aim: user-centered design). Aim 3: Conduct a pilot of a physical activity mHealth intervention for patients with HF targeting barriers and facilitators to physical activity (training aim: mHealth study design). The second goal of this proposal is to establish Dr. Golbus as a leader in mHealth interventions for CVD management and provide her the skills necessary to combine behavioral theory with emerging mHealth technologies to promote personalized care for HF patients.