The Center for Community Health Partnership and Research and the Center for Dissemination and Implementation, both at the Institute for Public Health, have awarded seed funding for two public health-related projects. The projects focus on health care for older adults and for those with prostate cancer, respectively. Through its Pitch Partners² funding mechanism, the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research, has collaborated with the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at the Institute for Public Health and the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences’ Aging Clinical Research Consortium to award seed funding to the following project:
Addressing the Mental Health of Older Adults
Primary Investigators: Behnaz Sarrami, Missouri Pharmacogenics Consulting, LLC; Emily Somerville, OTD, OTR/L, Instructor in Occupational Therapy and Neurology
Between five to eight million older adults have at least one or more mental health conditions and this number continues to grow exponentially. Some 60% of older adults are not able to correctly follow their medication routine, which diminishes the effectiveness of the medication and often continues a cycle of debilitating depression and anxiety, decreasing quality of life, and increasing isolation and the difficulty of completing daily activities. The project implements a mobile wellness clinic that travels to the homes of older adults. A team of mental health providers including a pharmacist and an occupational therapist address barriers to effective mental health care through in-home mental health therapy and interventions, which support medication management. The goal of this program is to decrease the impact of mental health conditions on older adults by providing individualized, in-home services.
To receive seed funding from the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research Pitch Partners program, community members, organizations and faculty have the opportunity to pitch health-related project ideas in order to identify potential partners and receive critical feedback. Participants learn best practices in how to achieve better communication between academia and the community, and about Washington University community initiatives and research. Several projects are selected for seed funding.
Funding for this project is made possible by the Pitch Partners2 funding mechanism from the Institute for Public Health and the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences through the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health, Grant Number UL1TR002345
The Center for Dissemination and Implementation has awarded Rapid Add-On (RAD) Funding to the following project:
Discussing care costs during shared decision-making about slow-growing prostate cancer
Primary Investigator: Mary C. Politi, PhD, professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine
Financial toxicity is a common result of cancer treatment, affecting approximately half of all cancer survivors, especially low-income patients. It is associated with reduced quality of life and poor clinical outcomes, including lower adherence to treatment, higher rates of mood disorders, and increased mortality. This add-on funding supports an established intervention called CostTalk, which provides urologic surgeon training in how to talk to patients about cancer costs and shared decision-making. CostTalk also includes an informational grid that compares costs associated with slow-growing prostate cancer. Patient-clinician discussions about treatment costs can help lower costs of care and reduce the burden of care costs (“financial toxicity”) on patients.
The Center for Dissemination and Implementation’s RAD funding enables investigators to rapidly “add-on” measurements or pilot data collection to an existing observational or experimental research study to better understand an aspect of D&I. Read about additional center funding programs.