Due to recent technological advances, state-of-the art data collection and analysis methods are evolving faster than ever before. This makes it difficult for drug abuse and HIV prevention researchers to keep up with the latest research methods. We propose to continue a series of annual dissemination conferences, called the Summer Institutes on Innovative Methods, which are designed to provide drug abuse and HIV researchers with the knowledge and skills needed to apply the most salient innovations in the collection and analysis of intensive longitudinal data (ILD). This focus on ILD is in response to (a) technological advances that enable the collection of real-time, real-world data related to health behavior (e.g., smart phones, wearable sensors), and (b) the growing priority area at the National Institutes of Health on mHealth (mobile health). ILD enable a deeper, more nuanced study of dynamic processes related to behavior and have the potential to inform the real-time delivery of behavioral interventions. The proposed conferences will help prevention scientists gain conceptual and practical understanding of state-of-the-art ILD methods they can apply in their research. All of these conferences will be presented by leading experts in ILD methods and will feature hands-on data analysis and/or sample data collection by participants. Topics include the collection of ILD, power analysis for planning new ILD studies, and two modern analytic methods for ILD that can help researchers gain critical knowledge from their complex data. In the final year of funding, we propose to organize a large, two-day capstone conference that will bring together leading methodologists (including presenters and selected trainees from the previous four years of this R13) and drug abuse and HIV prevention researchers working with ILD. Together, these scientists will be poised to build the next generation of adaptive behavioral interventions. Due to decades of experience both in developing innovative methods for longitudinal data and in training researchers to apply those methods, the Methodology Center at Penn State is uniquely qualified to organize this highly specialized, greatly needed dissemination activity.
Despite considerable progress in developing effective interventions, drug abuse and HIV continue to have devastating effects and a high cost to society. Emerging methods for studying risk behavior dynamics using intensive longitudinal data present new opportunities to combat drug abuse and HIV; use of these methods ultimately can inform the development of real-time interventions administered via mobile devices. The proposed series of conferences will work in concert to place critically important intensive longitudinal data methods into the hands of prevention researchers, thereby ensuring that drug abuse and HIV prevention research achieves the greatest public health impact.
