Insights from the trial innovation network's initial consultation process.

Multicenter clinical trials are essential for evaluating interventions but often face significant challenges in study design, site coordination, participant recruitment, and regulatory compliance. To address these issues, the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences established the Trial Innovation Network (TIN). The TIN offers a scientific consultation process, providing access to clinical trial and disease experts who provide input and recommendations throughout the trial's duration, at no cost to investigators.

Expert advice from ResearchMatch volunteers: Recruitment Innovation Center use cases and innovation.

Involving participants in the design of clinical trials should improve the overall success of a study. For this to occur, streamlined mechanisms are needed to connect the populations potentially impacted by a given study or health topic with research teams in order to inform trial design in a meaningful and timely manner. To address this need, we developed an innovative mechanism called the "ResearchMatch Expert Advice Tool" that quickly obtains volunteer perspectives from populations with specific health conditions or lived experiences using the national recruitment registry, ResearchMatch.

Leveraging the Expertise of the CTSA Program to Increase the Impact and Efficiency of Clinical Trials.

Importance: Multicenter clinical trials play a critical role in the translational processes that enable new treatments to reach all people and improve public health. However, conducting multicenter randomized clinical trials (mRCT) presents challenges. The Trial Innovation Network (TIN), established in 2016 to partner with the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Consortium of academic medical institutions in the implementation of mRCTs, consists of 3 Trial Innovation Centers (TICs) and 1 Recruitment Innovation Center (RIC).

Research Bronchoscopies in Critically Ill Research Participants: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report.

Bronchoscopy for research purposes is a valuable tool to understand lung-specific biology in human participants. Despite published reports and active research protocols using this procedure in critically ill patients, no recent document encapsulates the important safety considerations and downstream applications of this procedure in this setting. The objectives were to identify safe practices for patient selection and protection of hospital staff, provide recommendations for sample procurement to standardize studies, and give guidance on sample preparation for novel research technologies.

Differences in Caregiving Intensity Among Distinct Sociodemographic Subgroups of Informal Caregivers: Joint Effects of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Employment.

More than 40 million informal caregivers in the United States provide essential care to older adults. Recent research has identified substantial differences in caregiving intensity by gender, race/ethnicity, and employment status. Using intersectionality theory, the current study extends the existing literature by exploring the relationship between caregiving intensity and the unique experiences of individuals with different intersections of gender, ethnicity, and employment.

Engaging smokers in research: Utility of Facebook in facilitating recruitment to a smoking cessation study.

Introduction: Social media, including Facebook outreach, is increasingly being used as a participant recruitment tool, and may be particularly useful in tobacco and smoking cessation studies. The Recruitment Innovation Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center partnered with Project LUNA, a smoking cessation study, to conduct a pilot social media campaign aimed at increasing study recruitment.

Methods: Two posts encouraging study participation were developed and promoted on Facebook to users with an interest in smoking-related topics, with a link to a study-specific webpage.

Opening doors to clinical trial participation among Hispanics: Lessons learned from the Spanish translation of ResearchMatch.

Introduction: Clinical trial participation among US Hispanics remains low, despite a significant effort by research institutions nationwide. ResearchMatch, a national online platform, has matched 113,372 individuals interested in participating in research with studies conducted by 8778 researchers. To increase accessibility to Spanish speakers, we translated the ResearchMatch platform into Spanish by implementing tenets of health literacy and respecting linguistic and cultural diversity across the US Hispanic population.

Differences within Differences: Gender Inequalities in Caregiving Intensity Vary by Race and Ethnicity in Informal Caregivers.

Among the 50+ million informal caregivers in the US, substantial gender, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in caregiving intensity are well-documented. However, those disparities may be more nuanced: gender disparities in caregiving intensity may vary by race/ethnicity (White, Black, and Hispanic) and socioeconomic status (SES). We used data from the 2011 National Study of Caregiving and applied generalized linear models to estimate associations between three measures of caregiver intensity (ADLs, IADLs, and hours caregiving/month) and the three sociodemographic factors with their interaction terms.

Socioeconomic and demographic factors modify observed relationship between caregiving intensity and three dimensions of quality of life in informal adult children caregivers.

Background: The relationship between informal caregiving intensity and caregiver health is well-established, though research suggests this may vary by caregiver demographics. The aim of this exploratory study is to assess the association between caregiving intensity and three dimensions of quality of life outcomes, and determine how caregiver sociodemographics change the nature of this relationship among informal adult children caregivers.

Methods: Using the 2011 National Study of Caregiving, associations between caregiving intensity and quality of life were examined in caregivers providing care to an aging parent (n = 1014).

Sociodemographic Disparities in Adult Child Informal Caregiving Intensity in the United States: Results from the New National Study of Caregiving.

The objective of the current study was to assess socioeconomic and demographic disparities in caregiving intensity among informal caregivers. Using a randomized, nationally representative sample of 1,014 adult child informal caregivers from Medicare enrollment databases, the associations between informal caregiving intensity and age, race/ethnicity, and income were examined using binary and ordinal logistic regression. Caregiving intensity varied by demographics.

What Aspects of Rural Life Contribute to Rural-Urban Health Disparities in Older Adults? Evidence From a National Survey.

Purpose: Rural-urban health disparities are well-documented and particularly problematic for older adults. However, determining which specific aspects of rural or urban living initiate these disparities remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to assess associations between place-based characteristics of rural-urban status and health among adults age 65+.

A Patient and Provider Research Agenda on Diabetes and Hypertension Management.

Introduction: A demonstration project in Richmond, Virginia involved patients and other stakeholders in the creation of a research agenda on dietary and behavioral management of diabetes and hypertension. Given the impact of these diseases on morbidity and mortality, considerable research has been directed at the challenges patients face in chronic disease management. The continuing need to understand disparities and find evidence-based interventions to improve outcomes has been fruitful, but disparities and unmet needs persist.

Socioeconomic and Demographic Disparities in Caregiving Intensity and Quality of Life in Informal Caregivers: A First Look at the National Study of Caregiving.

Informal caregiving is an integral component of the health care system, saving the national economy more than $522 billion annually. The current study examined how the association between caregiving intensity and caregiver quality of life varies by sociodemographic factors through a secondary analysis of the National Study of Caregiving. Generalized linear models assessed the associations among four aspects of caregiving intensity, three aspects of caregiver quality of life, and key sociodemographic factors.

A Closer Look at Rural-Urban Health Disparities: Associations Between Obesity and Rurality Vary by Geospatial and Sociodemographic Factors.

Background: Obesity affects over one-third of older adults in the United States. Both aging and obesity contribute to an increased risk for chronic disease, early mortality, and additional health care utilization. Obesity rates are higher in rural areas than in urban areas, although findings are mixed.

Challenges and barriers to health care and overall health in older residents of Alaska: evidence from a national survey.

Background: From 1970 to 2010, the Alaskan population increased from 302,583 to 698,473. During that time, the growth rate of Alaskan seniors (65+) was 4 times higher than their national counterparts. Ageing in Alaska requires confronting unique environmental, sociodemographic and infrastructural challenges, including an extreme climate, geographical isolation and less developed health care infrastructure compared to the continental US.