Mobile Technology and Online Tools to Improve Asthma Control in Adolescents

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Background and Rationale Asthma is the most common chronic illness affecting youth with prevalence and morbidity being significant among adolescents School based and web based asthma interventions have been shown to be effective with younger children Yet few interventions have been developed and tested with high school students with only one currently deployed online The efficacy of Asthma Self Management for Adolescents ASMA an in person evidence based high school based intervention has been established we have also successfully commercialized technology products for youth that are built on Candapos s dynamic e learning platform DELP Objective This Direct to Phase II SBIR project will fully develop and preliminarily validate ASMA an empirically based dynamic e health intervention to assist adolescents with uncontrolled asthma to learn how to manage their illness and improve their asthma control We will apply our demonstrated DELP platform to deploy this demonstrated asthma intervention Building on ASMAandapos s success ASMA will be grounded in social cognitive theory motivational interviewing and best practices for user interface design to create a product that can be disseminated to a broad audience of users We will accomplish three specific aims to fully develop ASMA including eight modules with core instructional topics tailored sessions and embedded interactive activities to conduct a two group randomized pilot trial with th th graders with uncontrolled asthma from two NYC public high schools in order to assess the preliminary intervention effects of ASMA and to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of ASMA and to finalize and prepare ASMA for commercialization based on feedback from adolescents who participated in the pilot test of ASMA and stakeholders who treat and or educate adolescents with asthma or who are likely payers We will also evaluate the reach acceptability feasibility and sustainability of the ASMA product Hypotheses Over two months post intervention relative to controls ASMA participants will show significantly greater improvement in asthma related outcomes We also hypothesize that ratings and software usage indices will demonstrate that ASMA is a feasible usable and acceptable intervention for use with adolescents We will also explore evidence of a dose response in which participants who spend more time engaged with the e training materials show greater positive change Significance ASMA will be the first dynamically adaptive personalized interactive software product specifically designed for improving management of asthma and asthma control in adolescents with uncontrolled asthma As detailed in the Commercialization Plan ASMA will be a unique commercial offering within a large potential market with revenue being generated through sales to schools clinics emergency departments health insurance companies and professional health organizations e g local ALA chapters asthma coalitions PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Asthma is the most common chronic illness in youth The total economic impact of asthma in school aged youth is estimated to be nearly $ billion and the disability adjusted life years lost estimate due to asthma is million per year on par with diabetes Asthma has greater prevalence and morbidity among adolescents than young children and asthma related activity limitations increase with age Yet adolescents are less likely to receive regular medical care for their asthma and few interventions have been empirically established for use with adolescents The proposed Direct to Phase II SBIR will address this critical need by developing and testing ASMA the first e health intervention product for adolescents with uncontrolled asthma which leverages intelligent games adaptive interactive exercises and dynamically generated personalized feedback within a dynamic e learning platform to reach the broadest number of youth possible