Longstanding health disparities in underserved populations result in higher infection rates, disease, and chronic conditions in older and minority populations. Without referral and linkage to healthcare services and clinical trials, many individuals, including older African Americans/Blacks (AA/Bs) in particular, are unlikely to receive the healthcare they need. The University of Florida's nationally-recognized HealthStreet program was created to directly respond to health disparities and serve as a one-stop portal for linking, referring, and navigating under-represented populations to mental health, medical, psychiatric, and social services (e.g., food pantries, jobs, and housing) through the use of community health workers (CHWs). Barriers (e.g., time required for extensive CHW training, intakes, follow-up calls, etc.) mean not enough community members (CMs) make and attend referral appointments (e.g., 27% appointment confirmation rate). Mobile health (mHealth) can address existing barriers to create a scalable program to better utilize the CHW's time. Benten Technologies proposes to design, develop and test a mHealth platform called eREACH that will support HealthStreet's CHWs to provide e-screenings and referrals, deliver education in the form of short, animated movies viewable on a mobile phone or tablet, and utilize virtual agents to facilitate follow up calls and the dissemination of information. These mHealth tools will give the CHWs time to nurture a relationship with the CM and, in so doing, build a sense of trust in the clinician-participant relationship. The Phase 1 SBIR Specific Aims are to (1) Use formative research with AA/Bs over 60 years of age who are at-risk for diabetes, hypertension, and/or mild cognitive impairment with family members and relevant stakeholders to identify the needs and requirements for screenings and linkage to care; and (2) Pilot test eREACH with 30 AA/Bs and their family members to evaluate acceptance and feasibility. In the long term, the number of individuals identified, referred, and linked to care by eREACH will support the continuity of care needed to address various health issues for underserved populations, increase participation rates in clinical trials and improve outreach to vulnerable senior citizens.
Public Health Relevance Statement: NARRATIVE The eREACH platform will facilitate screenings, referrals, and linkage of African American/Black adults over 60 years of age to care and clinical trials as part of HealthStreet's community health worker program. The platform integrates novel features such as e-screenings, dashboards, virtual agents with natural language processing and speech recognition capacities, and microlearning educational materials. Terms: Adult; 21+ years old; Adult Human; adulthood; Elderly; advanced age; elders; geriatric; late life; later life; older adult; older person; senior citizen; Appointment; Artificial Intelligence; AI system; Computer Reasoning; Machine Intelligence; Biomedical Research; Capital Financing; Capital Funding; Clinical Research; Clinical Study; Clinical Trials; Communication; Communities; Community Health Aides; community health worker; Community Health Education; Community Education; Continuity of Patient Care; Continuity of Care; Continuum of Care; Diabetes Mellitus; diabetes; Disease; Disorder; Education; Educational aspects; Face; faces; facial; Florida; Food; Food or Food Product; Health; Healthcare Systems; Health Care Systems; Health Personnel; Health Care Providers; Healthcare Providers; Healthcare worker; health care personnel; health care worker; health provider; health workforce; healthcare personnel; medical personnel; treatment provider; Health Services; Health Services Accessibility; Access to Care; access to health services; access to services; access to treatment; accessibility to health services; availability of services; care access; health service access; health services availability; service availability; treatment access; Housing; Hypertension; Vascular Hypertensive Disease; Vascular Hypertensive Disorder; high blood pressure; hyperpiesia; hyperpiesis; hypertensive disease; hypertensive disorder; Information Dissemination; dissemination of results; Lead; Pb element; heavy metal Pb; heavy metal lead; Mental Health; Mental Hygiene; Psychological Health; Minority Groups; Minority People; Minority Population; Minority individual; Names; natural language understanding; Natural Language Processing; Jobs; Professional Positions; Occupations; Paper; Public Health; Research; Research Resources; Resources; Risk; Psychiatric Social Service; psychosocial service; Psychiatric Social Work; Software; Computer software; Tablets; Technology; Testing; Time; United States; Universities; Work; United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; AHCPR; AHRQ; Agency for Health Care Policy and Research; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; United States Agency for Health Care Policy and Research; African American; Afro American; Afroamerican; Family member; Healthcare; health care; Caring; base; improved; Chronic; Phase; Medical; Link; Training; discrimination based on race; discrimination due to race; race discrimination; race-based discrimination; race-related discrimination; racial discrimination; Individual; Trust; tool; machine learned; Machine Learning; programs; Amentia; Dementia; Services; speech recognition; novel; Participant; member; movie; outreach; Intervention Strategies; interventional strategy; Intervention; Cell Phone; Cellular Telephone; iPhone; smart phone; smartphone; Cellular Phone; Mobile Phones; Car Phone; diabetes risk; disparity in health; health disparity; Effectiveness; Address; Age-Years; Educational Materials; Improve Access; Intake; Enrollment; enroll; Older Population; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; SBIR; Small Business Innovation Research; Process; follow-up; Active Follow-up; active followup; follow up; followed up; followup; care systems; care services; virtual; digital; Underserved Population; under served group; under served people; under served population; underserved group; underserved people; design; designing; willingness; Outcome; Population; Consumption; innovation; innovate; innovative; handheld mobile device; mobile device; usability; high risk; social health determinants; screening; mild cognitive impairment; mild cognitive disorder; mHealth; m-Health; mobile health; Underrepresented Populations; Underrepresented Groups; under representation of groups; under represented groups; under represented people; under represented populations; underrepresentation of groups; underrepresented people; health care service; healthcare service; dashboard; recruit; Text Messaging; short message service; texting; dementia risk; risk factor for dementia; risk for dementia; infection rate; rate of infection; distrust; pilot test; Black American; African American population; African American group; African American individual; African American people; African Americans
