Iproceedings

Only 11% of breast cancer survivors currently meet the exercise oncology guidelines, and the restrictions to gyms and time outside of home related to the COVID-19 pandemic may have aggravated this situation. To address this, we are testing the efficacy of a twice-weekly, 8-week, supervised, synchronous exercise program delivered virtually for participants diagnosed with breast cancer, called the BE-FIT program.

Recent evidence suggests that 59%-73% of Black women are not reaching recommended targets for physical activity (PA). PA is a key modifiable lifestyle factor that can help mitigate risk for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, which disproportionately affect Black women. Web-based communities focused on PA have been emerging in recent years as digital gathering spaces to provide support for PA in specific populations.

Hunger and food cravings predict poor outcomes in lifestyle interventions for weight management. For this reason, flexible weight management programs, as opposed to restrictive weight management programs, are needed. WW (formerly Weight Watchers)—a widely available, commercial weight management and wellness program—includes an approach that allows participants to obtain a personalized zero-point food (ZPF) list, which includes foods that do not need to be weighed, measured, or tracked. With over 300 potential options, ZPFs can include fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nonfat dairy, and lean sources of protein. Participants are assigned an individualized daily and weekly point target and can use ZPFs to help budget their points throughout the day, which can nudge participants toward a healthier overall dietary pattern.

Aphasia is a language deficit that is most often caused by stroke. Speech-language therapy is effective in helping people recover lost language, and it should lead to generalization to untrained tasks and gains in functional language. However, not everyone is able to receive therapy due to a lack of finances; a lack of insurance coverage; or, most recently, COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased telehealth use; however, it simultaneously widened the digital health divide. Several studies in New York City (NYC) demonstrated that communities with the highest COVID-19 prevalence also had the lowest telehealth use. Moreover, the social distancing measures used to curb COVID-19 led to isolation, loneliness, and the avoidance of needed in-person care. Mobile integrated health programs utilizing both in-person components and virtual components can overcome social determinants that limit access to telehealth. Our mobile integrated health program, community teleparamedicine (CTP), employs care managers and community paramedics to engage patients with chronic illness and facilitate telehealth visits with emergency physicians.

Digital transformation is impacting health care delivery and showing great market dynamism, bringing opportunities and concerns alike. Digital health applications are a vibrant segment where regulation is emerging, with Germany paving the way with its DiGA program. Simultaneously, anxiety and depression constitute global health concerns, and their prevalence is expected to worsen due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its containment measures. Portugal and its National Health System may be a useful testbed for digital health interventions seeking to manage anxiety and depression. This research methodology is very relevant in studies on mental health, making the protocol highly reusable.

Generally, adherence to diet and physical activity in behavioral weight management programs predicts weight loss. Moreover, meeting attendance and platform or app use predict weight loss. Many weight-loss–prediction studies primarily use regression. However, little is known about the levels of adherence to specific web-based weight management program tools as well as behavioral and psychosocial variables that predict significant weight loss using machine-learning approaches.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) experienced rapid telehealth adoption, which drastically shifted how FQHCs delivered care to underserved patients. While studies indicate clinicians and patients would like to continue to use telehealth after the pandemic, questions remain about telehealth care quality, and there are opportunities for improvement in FQHCs.

Since COVID-19 rapidly made telemedicine a necessity, it is clear that virtual patient visits are going to be part of the new norm in continued outpatient care as we move into a postpandemic reality. However, we are still learning about patients’ experiences and preferences amid the rapid and widespread deployment of telemedicine.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate impaired verbal and nonverbal communication, deficits in emotional regulation, higher rates of repetitive behaviors, and poor motor planning and body coordination. Our past studies have demonstrated that engaging in rhythmic movement interventions can advance gross motor skills while promoting spontaneous verbalization, joint attention, and improved behavioral regulation in children with ASD.

Postpartum weight retention contributes to weight gain and obesity. Remote lifestyle interventions may overcome barriers to attending in-person programs during this phase.

Social media–delivered lifestyle interventions have shown promising outcomes, often generating modest but significant weight loss. Participant engagement appears to be an important predictor of weight loss outcomes in these interventions, but engagement generally declines over time and is highly variable within and across studies. Research on factors that influence participant engagement remains scant in the context of social media–delivered lifestyle interventions.