Technology to Scale a Phone-Based Diabetes Prevention Program

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant The Specific Aim of this SBIR Phase I proposal is to test the feasibility of using a technology platform to scale a newly validated method of telephonic delivery of the Diabetes Prevention Program DPP for African American and Hispanic patients who do not use the internet Pew About of the million people with pre diabetes will acquire diabetes over their lifetime This risk of diabetes is in our target populatins if over higher compared to non Hispanic white Americans Lifestyle change is the most efficacious intervention to prevent progression from pre diabetes to diabetes DPP is a proven intensive lifestyle intervention that significantly reduces the risk of developing diabetes by compared to receiving the first line diabetes medication Cost limitations have prevented wide dissemination of the DPP which was originally delivered in person on and by health professionals To address this hurdle DPP was delivered by trained lay individuals using in person groups While effective the in person use still imposes time convenience and cost constraints To address some of these barriers to widespread dissemination internet based DPP programs were developed However about of African Americans and Hispanics do not use the Internet Within this group the internet is not used by andgt of senior citizens andgt of adults with less than a high school education and andgt of those in households with income andlt $ Notably these populations all have a disproportionate prevalence of diabetes and are thus most likely to benefit As a solution our team used manual methods to successfully adapt the DPP for telephonic delivery since of households have either a wireless or landline telephone service This five year NIH funded study showed that delivery of the DPP is highly effective yet has key limitations that prevent widespread dissemination First coaches need to be trained to deliver the DPP telephonically There is an existing network of CDC approved coaches trained to deliver DPP in person Since these coaches are distributed nationally training them in person for telephonic delivery of DPP will be cost prohibitive and not practical To address this weakness we will develop a web based training program for these coaches Task Second managing a geographically distributed network of coaches enrolling patients into telephonic classes and managing tracking classes will also be difficult To address this issue we will develop a common web based technology platform to help manage and support coaches and administrators Task In Task we will carry out a pilot study to test the feasibility of using this web based approach to allowing widespread dissemination of telephonic delivery of the DPP In Phase II we will improve our product as informed by the results of Phase I and then conduct a randomized clinical trial involving the delivery of the full DPP We expect to develop and disseminate an evidence based scalable easy to implement intervention that can be utilized to prevent diabetes in underserved communities PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE About million Americans have pre diabetes and up to of these individuals are expected to acquire diabetes over their lifetime The Diabetes Prevention Program DPP is a validated approach to reduce the incidence of diabetes by as much as This is a proposal to extend the reach and impact of the DPP to the underserved by scalable delivery through the telephone