Serving Research Enterprise


RCA Awarded Technology Transfer Research Grants

HIV, alcohol misuse, and other diseases associated with lifestyle choices continue to be major public health problems in the United States. However, efforts to incorporate prevention into mainstream medical practice have faced barriers due to severe constraints on time and personnel that characterize many modern healthcare delivery settings. This circumstance has created a real demand for evidence-based behavioral interventions that are responsive to the constraints of modern healthcare environments. The awards to Research Circle Associates (RCA) by the National Institutes of Health will establish the feasibility of designing key components of an innovative computerized risk screening and brief intervention software program that would be appropriate for use in a variety of healthcare settings.

A computerized screening product with a built-in brief intervention could improve patient disclosure of risk behaviors and dramatically enhance the healthcare system’s capacity to deliver prevention/intervention to a broad spectrum of patients. Such software could facilitate much faster uptake of preventive services in various healthcare settings by circumventing many of the persistent barriers that stymie their adoption as routine care.

These projects build on our collaboration with Chase Brexton Health Services in Baltimore, Maryland. Chase Brexton is a high-volume, community-based Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that provides on-site AIDS care, psychiatric care, alcohol/substance abuse treatment, primary care, on-site pharmacy, and a walk-in STD clinic, among other services.