Overview. This application for a K24 mid-career investigator award proposes to support mentoring for junior investigators interested in mHealth to improve adherence monitoring and intervention for HIV and related comorbid conditions. Candidate: Dr. Haberer is a practicing internist, the Director of Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Global Health, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She has nearly 10 years of experience studying adherence to antiretroviral therapy for both the treatment and prevention of HIV in developing settings, with a particular focus on mHealth. Dr. Haberer is considered a leader in her field and most specifically in electronic adherence monitors and SMS-based monitoring and intervention. Dr. Haberer is also a dedicated mentor and has supported 21 pre-doctoral students, residents, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty, both in Boston and abroad. Her mentees have written 18 first author papers (5 additional papers are in process) and received six NIH-funded grants with her guidance. As a testament to her mentoring, she won the prestigious HMS Young Mentor Award in 2014. Mentoring Plan: Dr. Haberer?s mentoring goals are to 1) increase mentoring activities in mHealth-based adherence monitoring and intervention; and 2) establish a structured mentoring program at the MGH Center for Global Health. She can access mentees through MGH, HMS, and other Harvard-affiliated institutions, as well as her research partner institutions in East Africa. Dr. Haberer is currently the principal investigator on two R01 grants through NIMH, as well as a large scale grant through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She therefore has the capacity for numerous mentees to participate in her on-going studies through analysis of existing data and supplemental projects. Dr. Haberer will also be expanding her research into implementation science, in which she will engage additional mentees. She has been receiving an increasing number of requests for mentorship that would require the support of this award. Research Plan: Dr. Haberer proposes to expand her research program into implementation science for mHealth-based adherence monitoring and intervention. This goal involves both acquiring formal training in implementation science, as well as conducting implementation science research on the use of electronic ART adherence monitoring plus support for routine clinical care in Uganda.
She aims to 1) conduct multi-level formative work to design a preliminary implementation strategy; and 2) use an iterative approach to optimize the implementation strategy based on the Consolidated Framework for Research Implementation. This proposed research will help determine ways to move effective mHealth tools from the research context into routine clinical care, as well as advance Dr. Haberer?s career and serve as a platform for mentee involvement.
mHealth tools, such as electronic adherence monitors (i.e., pill containers that record each opening as a proxy for medication ingestion) and short message service (SMS), hold great promise for improving adherence to HIV antiretroviral therapy and other conditions. The candidate, Dr. Jessica Haberer, has extensive experience in this field and a strong commitment to mentorship. This award will allow her protected time to expand her mentoring activities to a growing cadre of junior investigators and to further her research skills in implementation science.
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