Grant Number:	1R01CA283950-01A1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Schlechter, Chelsey
Organization:	University Of Utah
Project Title:	Partnerships to Reduce Obesity in Community Health Center Patients
Fiscal Year:	2024

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Approximately 40% of U.S. adults have obesity (BMI>30), and excess body weight is associated with at least 13 different cancers and 5% and 11% of cancer cases in men and women, respectively. Obesity disproportionately impacts racial/ethnic minority, low socioeconomic status (SES), and rural populations, and plays a critical role in cancer inequities. Evidence-Based Interventions (EBIs) that address excess body weight, physical inactivity, and poor diet are effective in promoting weight loss and reducing cancer risk, but are grossly underutilized and there are substantial disparities in access among historically marginalized populations. Digital EBI delivery modalities have yielded outcomes comparable to in-person programs. As such, the long-term objective of SMARTLife Utah is to increase the reach of existing digital EBIs for obesity among racial/ethnic minority, low SES, and rural populations in low resource healthcare settings. SMARTLife Utah will be conducted in 11 Community Health Center (CHC) systems consisting of 38 primary care clinics. SMARTLife Utah, is a hybrid type III effectiveness – implementation design, using a pragmatic, multilevel, three phase, Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART). SMARTLife Utah leverages ubiquitous health information technology (HIT)/telehealth for both the implementation strategies and EBI delivery in order to address barriers for engaging in EBIs. Implementation strategies target two different levels to increase the reach of EBIs: 1) a clinic level HIT implementation strategy that includes enhanced system supports at point of care; and, 2) patient level implementation strategies that provide repeated opportunities to enroll in EBIs, as well as motivation/practical problem solving to facilitate enrollment. The scientific premise of SMARTLife Utah is based on: 1) Evidence that EBIs for obesity are effective but underutilized, 2) Recommendations to scale up EBI reach and reduce inequities utilizing technology based programs, 3) Data demonstrating that HIT implementation strategies can dramatically increase engagement with EBIs and fit within existing clinical systems, 4) Data indicating that text messaging can increase the reach of EBIs, and 5) Prior research highlighting the effectiveness of telehealth-based patient navigation in improving the reach of EBIs. SMARTLife Utah will provide critical data regarding the impact of pragmatic and scalable multilevel implementation strategies designed to increase the uptake of EBIs for obesity among historically marginalized populations low resource healthcare settings. It will also advance the field of dissemination and implementation science by testing key constructs hypothesized to influence implementation and effectiveness using a comprehensive conceptual framework.





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