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Annals of Behavioral Medicine
[ Special Supplement coming in 2004]
Health
Behavior Change Research:
A Consortium Approach to Collaborative Science
Guest-Editors:
Patricia Jordan, Ph.D. / Marcia Ory, Ph.D., M.P.H. / Tamara Sher, Ph.D.
****
By stimulating a wide
range of cross-project collaborations, the BCC has supported unique efforts for
theory-comparison and multiple-behavior research that can better integrate empirical
research in our efforts to change health behaviors. This includes finding new ways to
enhance recruitment and retention, especially among diverse populations; improving
treatment fidelity; developing common metrics across behaviors that can be used to advance
the measurement and assessment of behavioral change; and expanding the reach and
translation of effective intervention approaches. The BCC has cultivated unprecedented
opportunities for cross-site collaboration in order to explore both theoretical and
empirical issues important to advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of behavior
change. Such work provides a stronger basis for advancing our knowledge of the processes
by which people change and maintain health behaviors in an effort to better facilitate
those processes.
This supplement issue will
present the collective knowledge that has been gained from cross-site
initiatives and relationships of the BCC. The content of the issue will include an
overview of critical issues in health behavior change research, including
behavior-specific measurement issues (i.e., nutrition, physical activity, tobacco
dependence), methodological considerations (e.g., recruitment and
retention, treatment fidelity), and impact issues (e.g., representativeness and
translation).
Proposed Manuscripts
The following workgroups are scheduled to participate in this journal
supplement. Specific titles and topics could be subject to change.
·
Yours, mine and ours: The importance of scientific
collaboration in advancing the field of
behavior change research
Brief Description: The inter- and intra-organizational
collaboration fostered BCC is unparalleled. In addition to the approximately $8 million
annually in funding from NIH, the BCC has received at least $300,000 for cross-site
research activities from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, approximately $200,000 toward
costs of the bi-annual meetings from the American Heart Association, and a further $1.1
million in supplementary funding from various Institutes for workgroup activities. In the four years that the BCC has been operating, it
has evolved from a collection of novel research projects to a consortium of investigators
whose collaborative infrastructure has multiplied the scientific value of each single
intervention at least 15-fold. This paper will describe the various processes involved in
the creation and sustainability of the BCC, including internal and external
communications, leadership, workgroup roles, private and public partnerships, issues
associated with data sharing, joint publication guidelines, and discuss why in the case of
the BCC, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Primary Authors: Patricia J. Jordan, Ph.D., Behavior Change Consortium; Marcia Ory,
Ph.D., Texas A & M University System; Tamara Sher, Ph.D., Illinois Institute of
Technology
·
Screening for Physical Activity
Brief Description: Although there are current
public health recommendations encouraging Americans to become more physically active,
little is known about what are the most appropriate screening practices for those entering
new activity programs, the impact of screening on individuals initiating exercise programs
or the relationship between screening and adverse events, or the adverse events associated
with becoming more active. Utilizing data from several BCC sites promoting more physical
activity, this paper provides a unique examination of experiences in different types of
studies, populations and settings.
Primary Authors: Marcia Ory, Ph.D., Texas A
& M University System; Barbara Resnick, Ph.D., University of Maryland; Mace Coday, Ph.D., The University of Tennessee Health
Science Center; Deborah Riebe, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island; Leslie Pruitt, Ph.D.,
Stanford University; Terry Bazzarre, Ph.D., Robert Rood Johnson Foundation; Carol Garber,
Ph.D., Brown University; additional authors on behalf of the Physical Activity
workgroup TBA
·
Physical Activity Staging
Distribution: Establishing a Heuristic Using Multiple Studies
Brief
Description: Knowledge of the readiness to change of a population is paramount for
maximizing the effectiveness of interventions. This paper, which examines the BCC studies
addressing physical activity, allows for an unprecedented establishment of distribution
estimates for non-clinical and clinical study samples. In addition, the impact of
recruitment methods (reactive versus proactive) on the stage of readiness distribution
will be investigated.
Primary Authors: Laurie Hellsten, Ph.D., University of Saskatoon; Claudio R. Nigg,
Ph.D., University of Hawaii at Manoa; additional authors on behalf of the Physical
Activity workgroup TBA
·
Using Motivational Interviewing in Public Health
Research: Training Experiences from the Field
Brief Description: Motivational
interviewing (MI), initially developed for addiction counseling, has increasingly been
applied in a number of health promotion settings. This paper will describe the methods
used to train and supervise intervention staff to deliver a MI intervention in various
public health settings, and will provide examples of training strategies from a number of
BCC projects intervening on a variety of health behaviors. The authors will compare
the various approaches required to train staff to conduct public health interventions with
those needed to deliver clinical treatment, and will contrast the ideals of providing
high-quality MI training with the limitations of conducting field research and offer
recommendations for future studies.
Primary Authors: Ken Resnicow, Ph.D., Emory
University; Jacki Hecht, R.N., M.S.N., Brown Medical School/The Miriam Hospital; Rosemary
Breger, M.P.H., Oregon Health & Science University; Belinda Borrelli, Ph.D., Brown
Medical School; and Denise Ernst, M.A., Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research
·
Measuring tobacco use and
abstinence outcomes in clinical trials:
The Behavior Change Consortium experience supports reporting prolonged abstinence
Brief Description: Measuring tobacco use and
abstinence outcomes in the 15 Behavior Change Consortium (BCC) studies presented many
challenges that are common to studies of health related behavior change. Study designs
varied between observational (10), cessation induction (3), aid to cessation (2), and
reducing exposure to environmental smoke (1), and the interventions varied in strength
from web-based to intensive individual counseling. Considerations given for how
recommendations for assessing how tobacco use and outcomes were made will be discussed.
Empirical support from a BCC study will be presented and discussed supporting current
Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobaccos recommendations for reporting
prolonged abstinence primarily, and seven day point prevalence secondarily, in all
clinical trials.
Primary Authors: Geoffrey C. Williams, M.D.,
Ph.D., University of Rochester; Holly McGregor, Ph.D., University of Rochester; Belinda
Borrelli, Ph.D., Brown University Medical School; Patricia J. Jordan, Ph.D., Behavior
Change Consortium; Claudio R. Nigg, Ph.D., University of Hawaii at Manoa; Vic Strecher,
Ph.D., University of Michigan; Cathy Backinger, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute
·
Research in the Real World: When Behavioral Trials
Meet with Lifes Realities
and its Impact on Attrition
Brief Description: The strength of behavior change trials lies in
the extent to which intervention results can be generalized to broader populations. In
this context, much data has emerged on recruiting adequate numbers of representative
participants into clinical trials. Conversely, retaining study participants in behavioral
trials, an equally formidable task, has received far less attention and systematic study
by investigators. This paper attempts to identify life course events occurring from middle
childhood through older age adulthood that may make it difficult for participants to
remain in a clinical trial from randomization through study close out. The paper will also
describe and rate the effectiveness of the retention strategies employed by 15 behavior
modification trials in combating study attrition as evidenced by follow up retention rates
across diverse populations.
Primary Authors: Carla Boutin-Foster, M.D.,
M.S., Weill Cornell Medical College; Mace Coday, Ph.D., The University of Tennessee Health
Science Center; Tamara Sher, Ph.D., Illinois Institute of Technology; Jennifer Tennant,
R.N., Rush-Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center; Judy Salkeld, Ph.D., Harvard
School of Public Health; Molly Greaney, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island; Sandra
Saunders, M.P.H., University of Rhode Island
·
Beginning with the Application in Mind: Designing and
Planning Health Behavior Change
Interventions to Enhance Translation & Dissemination
Brief Description: It is well known that improvements are needed in
the translation and dissemination of behavior change interventions to achieve national
population health goals. Designing and planning interventions with the
end-user in mind can improve the generalizability and applicability of
programs and enhance their translation. This paper uses the RE-AIM framework of reach,
efficacy/effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance to organize significant
planning questions and describe key study features that can strengthen the potential
translation of behavioral change research. Implementing these recommendations will
also enhance linkages between researchers, program adopters, delivery agents, and
communities in improving population health.
Primary Authors: Lisa Klesges, Ph.D.,
University of Tennessee, Memphis; Russ Glasgow, Ph.D., Kaiser Permanente, Colorado; Paul
Estabrooks, Ph.D., Kansas State University; David Dzewaltowski, Ph.D., Kansas State
University
For more
information about the upcoming special issue, please contact the BCC's Communications
Coordinator at beatles@etal.uri.edu. |