Friday, January 3, 2025
1/3/2025
The promise of mobile technologies in fostering health-behavior change (mHealth), particularly in behavioral and substance addictions, has been largely unrealized. Siloed development of mHealth solutions, an absence of shared vocabulary, and a dearth of cross-disciplinary interactions are some of the underlying drivers. Version 3.0 of our annual mHealth Training Institute (mHTI) will refine and extend our impactful capacity-building and knowledge-transfer activities. It will expand the focus beyond training participants in cross-cutting mHealth methodologies to include the development of integrative and collaborative abilities essential for tackling complex healthcare problems. Distinctive elements of the mHTI 3.0 include: (a) a focus on advanced topics and edge mHealth methodologies/analytics; (b) an articulated logic model to anchor program design, implementation and evaluation of mHTI’s effectiveness; (c) Multidisciplinary Team Projects (MTPs) to promote team science and emphasize impactful research; (d) use of advanced Social Network Analyses (SNA) to characterize the development of integrative thinking and evaluate collaboration and communication patterns in the participants; (e) use of innovative longitudinal SNA techniques, e.g., Separable Temporal Exponential Random Graph Models (STERGMs) and Stochastic Actor-oriented Models (SAOMs), to examine dynamic team science processes; (f) a novel digital platform (mHealthHUB) to promote and sustain transdisciplinary collaborations and broad dissemination of curated didactic content; (g) use of the Flight Tracker software to track and understand post- mHTI career trajectories via automated data collection; and (h) independent effectiveness evaluations by UCLA School of Education & Information Sciences faculty who with use the mHTI 3.0 as a testbed to empirically examine the processes by which teams organize, communicate, and conduct mHealth research. The mHTI will continue to serve as a national resource and educational ecosystem, nurturing the next generation of integrative scholars able to apply the latest advances in mHealth to the development and implementation of solutions with practical societal impact. Our virtual collaboratory (mHealthHUB) will enable and sustain collaborations between geographically dispersed scholars and ensure that the curated didactic content and Open Educational Resources (OERs) from the annual mHTIs are freely available; thus, expanding the reach and impact of our educational program and promoting long-term educational sustainability. The didactic resources of each mHTI will be curated into content clusters to serve as a toolkit for mHTI scholars seeking to deliver similar mHealth and team science training at their home institutions (Train-the-Trainer). By continuing to prime the mHealth innovation pipeline with a diverse cadre of self-actualizing, integrative scientists with transdisciplinary competencies and mindsets, mHTI 3.0 will ensure that the fields of behavioral health and addictive disorders are better positioned to realize the transformative potential of mHealth.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).