Scalable Telehealth Cancer Care: integrated healthy lifestyle program to live well after cancer treatment.

Northwestern University's Center for Scalable Telehealth Cancer Care (STELLAR) is 1 of 4 Cancer Moonshot Telehealth Research Centers of Excellence programs funded by the National Cancer Institute to establish an evidence base for telehealth in cancer care. STELLAR is grounded in the Institute of Medicine's vision that quality cancer care includes not only disease treatment but also promotion of long-term health and quality of life (QOL). Cigarette smoking, insufficient physical activity, and overweight and obesity often co-occur and are associated with poorer treatment response, heightened recurrence risk, decreased longevity, diminished QOL, and increased treatment cost for many cancers.

An Adaptive Behavioral Intervention for Weight Loss Management: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Lifestyle interventions for weight loss are difficult to implement in clinical practice. Self-managed mobile health implementations without or with added support after unsuccessful weight loss attempts could offer effective population-level obesity management.

Objective: To test whether a wireless feedback system (WFS) yields noninferior weight loss vs WFS plus telephone coaching and whether participants who do not respond to initial treatment achieve greater weight loss with more vs less vigorous step-up interventions.

Dynamic models of stress-smoking responses based on high-frequency sensor data.

Self-reports indicate that stress increases the risk for smoking; however, intensive data from sensors can provide a more nuanced understanding of stress in the moments leading up to and following smoking events. Identifying personalized dynamical models of stress-smoking responses can improve characterizations of smoking responses following stress, but techniques used to identify these models require intensive longitudinal data. This study leveraged advances in wearable sensing technology and digital markers of stress and smoking to identify person-specific models of stress and smoking system dynamics by considering stress immediately before, during, and after smoking events.

Using the Preparation Phase of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy to Develop a Messaging Component for Weight Loss: Formative and Pilot Research.

Background: Mobile messaging is often used in behavioral weight loss interventions, yet little is known as to the extent to which they contribute to weight loss when part of a multicomponent treatment package. The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) is a framework that researchers can use to systematically investigate interventions that achieve desirable outcomes given specified constraints.

Objective: This study describes the use of MOST to develop a messaging intervention as a component to test as part of a weight loss treatment package in a subsequent optimization trial.

Acceptability of smartphone technology to interrupt sedentary time in adults with diabetes.

Breaking up sitting time with light- or moderate-intensity physical activity may help to alleviate some negative health effects of sedentary behavior, but few studies have examined ways to effectively intervene. This feasibility study examined the acceptability of a new technology (NEAT!) developed to interrupt prolonged bouts (≥20 min) of sedentary time among adults with type 2 diabetes. Eight of nine participants completed a 1-month intervention and agreed that NEAT! made them more conscious of sitting time.