Current Research Portfolio

ActivityLink, led by Dr. Jamie Faro, is a clinic-delivered implementation program providing electronic referrals to cancer survivors to in-person or virtual physical activity programs. Cancer survivors are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and increasing physical activity levels is associated with reducing this risk. The first aim of this project is to develop the implementation program, conduct usability testing, and refine the program to be integrated into clinical workflow. The second aim is to beta-test ActivityLink in two waves of Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) Cycles, with iterative refinements to the program after each cycle. 

The iDAPT Developing Cancer Center (Award Number: P50CA244693) is part of a newly formed national network of collaborative research centers, funded by the National Cancer Institute and supported through the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot SM Initiative.  The iDAPT Developing Cancer Center, led by Drs. Kristie Foley and Thomas Houston from the Wake Forest School of Medicine and Dr. Sarah Cutrona from the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School is a Developing Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control that will use technologies to support rapid cycle and real-time deployment and testing implementation processes and adaptations within cancer control. The iDAPT team focuses on building capacity among primary care and oncology partners to engage in implementation science in cancer control and to conduct pilot studies aligned with iDAPT's theme.

The goal of ActivityChoice, led by Dr. Jamie Faro, is to develop and pilot test a clinic-based implementation program using patient narrative decision aids to support choices to a group in-person, group virtual, or self-monitored digital health physical activity program.

Led by Dr. Jamie Faro, this project is a collaboration between primary care providers, cancer care providers, healthcare administration, and health IT.  The objective is to understand the current state of post-treatment survivorship care at UMass Memorial, identify barriers to care communication, and develop strategies to improve care pathways.  The overall goal is to improve cancer survivor's quality of care as they transitiion back to their primary care provider.

The Smoker-to-Smoker Peer Marketing and Messaging to Disseminate Tobacco Intervention project is led by Dr. Rajani Sadasivam. Using a 2×2 factorial design, S2S will test two smoker-driven, social marketing innovations to recruit and engage smokers in Decide2Quit.org (Decide2Quit), an evidence-based, effective "Digital Intervention for Smoking Cessation" (DISC).

The mHealth Messaging to Motivate Quitline Use and Quitting (M2Q2) research project is led by Dr. Rajani Sadasivam in collaboration with researchers at the Institute of Population, Health and Development (PHAD) in Vietnam. The research focuses on a mobile health intervention among men and women smokers in Vietnam's Red River Delta region. The goal of M2Q2 is to increase the use of the Bach Mai Quitline, thus increasing access to counseling services and nicotine replacement therapy, and motivate smokers with tailored messages to promote cessation among current tobacco users in Vietnam.

To provide effective, personalized smoking cessation interventions, this research, led by Dr. Rajani Sadasivam, will develop and evaluate the models, algorithms, and wearable-phone-cloud computational infrastructures required to support the context inferences personalization, and delivery timing optimizations required. Starting from the team's extensive prior work, this research will contribute to (1) advances in mobile health sensing and context inference with low-cost, low-power sensors; (2) advances in real-time, stream-based active learning for personalizing context inference models; (3) advances in contextualized recommender systems to personalize message selection based on inferred contexts; and (4) advances in robust, real-time wearable-phone-cloud data analytics systems. This work will also make substantial contributions to enhancing research infrastructure through open-source software releases that the research community can leverage to yield benefits in other high-profile health areas, including heart disease, obesity, and addiction.

This research project, led by Drs. Hoa Nguyen and Rajani Sadasivam, is a randomized trial designed to develop a peer messaging and computer-tailored texting intervention to support smokers living with HIV in Vietnam to quit smoking. The project aims to adapt a current, effective peer messaging and computer-tailored texting intervention for PLWH smokers, to evaluate the effectiveness and process outcomes of the intervention, and, if proven to be effective, to integrate M2Q2-HIV project products into the Vietnamese clinical and public health infrastructure to continue promoting smoking cessation among PLWH smokers. This project is a collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School,  the Vietnam Ministry of Health - Vietnam Authority of HIV/AIDS Control, the Institute of Population, Health and Development (PHAD) in Vietnam.

The goal of this R34, led by Drs. Lori Pbert and Rajani Sadasivam, is to develop the Vaper-to-Vaper (V2V) multi-modal mobile peer-driven intervention to assist adolescent e-cigarette users in quitting. The V2V components will include 1) Peer messaging (tailored messages pushed via texting), 2) Peer coaching (asynchronous communications with trained coaches via texting), and 3) and Gamification (using game design to motivate participation).

Adapt2Quit — an innovative motivational texting "recommender system" – is led by Dr. Rajani Sadasivam. Adapt2Quit enhances tailored motivational messaging systems using machine-learning algorithms to learn from and adapt user feedback (prior and daily message ratings), increasing personal message relevance. This research project will test Adapt2Quit motivational messaging texting with socio-economically disadvantaged (SED) smokers.

This project, co-led by Dr. Jamie Faro, assess the feasibility and acceptability of incorporating wearable devices into clinical care and electronic health records for patients affected by weight gain. Wearables (e.g., Fitbits) have grown tremendously in popularity and suggest a potential solution for primary care providers to efficiently promote increased activity and thereby promote healthy weight management. To date, sustained and effective implementation of digital tools into patient care is lacking due to multiple barriers. This proposal will assess both patient and provider-level barriers, followed by developing and testing an integrated system.