An eHealth Intervention to Improve Quality of Life, Socioemotional, and Health-Related Measures Among Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: In the United States, over 60% of adults aged 65 years or older have multiple chronic health conditions, with consequences that include reduced quality of life, increasingly complex but less person-centered treatment, and higher health care costs. A previous trial of ElderTree, an eHealth intervention for older adults, found socioemotional benefits for those with high rates of primary care use.

Objective: This study tested the effectiveness of an ElderTree intervention designed specifically for older patients with multiple chronic conditions to determine whether combining it with primary care improved socioemotional and physical outcomes.

Couple-Focused Smartphone Intervention to Reduce Problem Drinking: Pilot Randomized Control Trial.

Background: Alcohol use disorder is among the most pervasive substance use disorders in the United States, with a lifetime prevalence of 30%. Recommended treatment options include evidence-based behavioral interventions; smartphone-based interventions confer a number of benefits such as portability, continuous access, and stigma avoidance; and research suggests that interventions involving couples may outperform those for patients only. In this context, a behavioral intervention delivered to couples through smartphones may serve as an effective adjunct to alcohol use disorder treatment.

Screen media exposure and young children's vocabulary learning and development: A meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0-6 years), word-learning, and vocabulary size. Multi-level analyses included 266 effect sizes from 63 studies (N  = 11,413) published between 1988-2022. Among samples with information about race/ethnicity (51%) and sex/gender (73%), most were majority White/Non-Hispanic and between 40%-60% female.

Using Smart Displays to Implement an eHealth System for Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Voice-controlled smart speakers and displays have a unique but unproven potential for delivering eHealth interventions. Many laptop- and smartphone-based interventions have been shown to improve multiple outcomes, but voice-controlled platforms have not been tested in large-scale rigorous trials. Older adults with multiple chronic health conditions, who need tools to help with their daily management, may be especially good candidates for interventions on voice-controlled devices because these patients often have physical limitations, such as tremors or vision problems, that make the use of laptops and smartphones challenging.

Effect of an eHealth intervention on older adults' quality of life and health-related outcomes: a randomized clinical trial.

Background: By 2030, the number of US adults age ≥65 will exceed 70 million. Their quality of life has been declared a national priority by the US government.

Objective: Assess effects of an eHealth intervention for older adults on quality of life, independence, and related outcomes.

A Web-Based eHealth Intervention to Improve the Quality of Life of Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) are common among older adults and expensive to manage. Two-thirds of Medicare beneficiaries have multiple conditions (eg, diabetes and osteoarthritis) and account for more than 90% of Medicare spending. Patients with MCCs also experience lower quality of life and worse medical and psychiatric outcomes than patients without MCCs.

Effects of Web-Based Social Connectedness on Older Adults' Depressive Symptoms: A Two-Wave Cross-Lagged Panel Study.

Background: Depressive symptoms are the most prevalent mental health concern among older adults (possibly heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic), which raises questions about how such symptoms can be lowered in this population. Existing research shows that offline social connectedness is a protective factor against depression in older adults; however, it is unknown whether web-based social connectedness can have similar effects.

Objective: This study investigates whether social connectedness on a support website protects older adults against depressive symptoms over the course of a year, above and beyond the protective effect of offline social connectedness.

Preschoolers' choices of television characters as sources of information: Effects of character type, format, and topic domain.

Educational television (TV) for preschoolers often features unrealistic (anthropomorphic and/or animated) characters, and it is unclear how children perceive such characters as sources of information. In this study, 92 3- to 5-year-olds saw images of characters and chose which would be best for learning about six topics across three domains: animal biology, human biology, and socioemotional. Children were randomized to one of three conditions in which they chose between paired images of (1) live-action humans versus animated humans (i.

Implementing a Mobile Health System to Integrate the Treatment of Addiction Into Primary Care: A Hybrid Implementation-Effectiveness Study.

Background: Despite the near ubiquity of mobile phones, little research has been conducted on the implementation of mobile health (mHealth) apps to treat patients in primary care. Although primary care clinicians routinely treat chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes, they rarely treat addiction, a common chronic condition. Instead, addiction is most often treated in the US health care system, if it is treated at all, in a separate behavioral health system.

The effect of bundling medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction with mHealth: study protocol for a randomized clinical trial.

Background: Opioid dependence has devastating and increasingly widespread consequences and costs, and the most common outcome of treatment is early relapse. People who inject opioids are also at disproportionate risk for contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV). This study tests an approach that has been shown to improve recovery rates: medication along with other supportive services (medication-assisted treatment, or MAT) against MAT combined with a smartphone innovation called A-CHESS (MAT + A-CHESS).

The Doctor Versus the Internet: Effects of Low-, Medium-, and High-Quality Websites on Intentions to Follow the Doctor's Advice.

How do patients respond when advice on health websites differs from advice given by a doctor? To test effects of advice concordance, 418 participants 25-80 years old were randomly assigned to read real websites that varied in quality of information about diabetes: high (medically accurate and complete), medium (accurate but incomplete), and low (inaccurate). The control group read travel sites. Participants then watched a video of a physician making treatment recommendations for a diabetic patient, and indicated how they would respond if they were the patient.

Implementing an mHealth system for substance use disorders in primary care: a mixed methods study of clinicians' initial expectations and first year experiences.

Background: Millions of Americans need but don't receive treatment for substance use, and evidence suggests that addiction-focused interventions on smart phones could support their recovery. There is little research on implementation of addiction-related interventions in primary care, particularly in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that provide primary care to underserved populations. We used mixed methods to examine three FQHCs' implementation of Seva, a smart-phone app that offers patients online support/discussion, health-tracking, and tools for coping with cravings, and offers clinicians information about patients' health tracking and relapses.

When meaning matters more: Media preferences across the adult life span.

Two studies considered age differences in the roles of emotion and meaningfulness in adults' media preferences. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) suggests that with increasing age, positive emotions become more meaningful, and emotional meaningfulness matters more for situation selection. Other developmental descriptions suggest that negative affect may be meaningful and interesting in youth.

"Vámonos means go, but that's made up for the show": reality confusions and learning from educational TV.

Educational television for young children often combines factual content with fantasy. In 2 experiments, we examined 3- to 5-year-olds' reality judgments and the implications for their learning. In the 1st study, 145 children watched 3 clips featuring (respectively) a Hispanic, a Chinese American, and an Anglo character.

Integrating addiction treatment into primary care using mobile health technology: protocol for an implementation research study.

Background: Healthcare reform in the United States is encouraging Federally Qualified Health Centers and other primary-care practices to integrate treatment for addiction and other behavioral health conditions into their practices. The potential of mobile health technologies to manage addiction and comorbidities such as HIV in these settings is substantial but largely untested. This paper describes a protocol to evaluate the implementation of an E-Health integrated communication technology delivered via mobile phones, called Seva, into primary-care settings.