Translational Research Agenda Research Articles

Preventing the Gaps in Psychedelic Research from Becoming Practice Pitfalls: A Translational Research Agenda

Preventing the Gaps in Psychedelic Research from Becoming Practice Pitfalls: A Translational Research Agenda

Translating research into policy and action.

Translating research into policy and action.

25309 Applying Community Health Priorities to the Translational Research Agenda

ABSTRACT IMPACT: This work has begun to provide the foundation for better ensuring that translational research funded and supported by our IDeA-CTR grant is more directly addressing community- and stakeholder-authored health priorities. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: In order to effectively engage diverse, societal perspectives, we aimed to determine the relevance and feasibility of purposefully aligning translational research with health priorities adopted by the RI Department of Health, health-focused organizations, and community leaders. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Individuals from 27 community organizations in RI were asked, ‘What are your health related goals for your community’ and submitted responses online for 2 weeks. Participants generated 71 goals which they sorted into meaningful clusters and rated for importance and feasibility. Clusters were contrasted with RI health priorities to gauge alignment and saturation. In the next phase of this project, researchers and service users funded by Advance-CTR will be asked in routinely administered surveys how their current work may align with RI health goals and whether their future work can feasibly be connected to those priorities. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Using Group Concept Mapping software, the 71 health goals identified by community organization representatives were fit into an 8-cluster model. Results suggested highest importance placed on Accessible & Healthy Housing (M=4.12, SD=0.29), Community (M=4.08, SD=0.28), Youth (M=4.04, SD=0.49) and Mental Health (M=4.03, SD=0.46). State agency priorities were found to overlap substantially with clusters defined by community leaders. We expect researchers will rate clusters differently, and find some community-endorsed health goals more relevant to their work than others. Perceived feasibility of tailoring future research to state health goals is expected to vary widely by item and researcher. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: We intend to: 1) facilitate discussions about successes and challenges of translating community-authored priorities into research, and 2) foster better understanding between researchers and the communities they aim to serve on the role of CTR for addressing health challenges in the state.

A Proof of Concept Analysis of Decision-Making with Time-Series Data

Behavior analysts make dozens of practice-related decisions every day. Past research has extensively examined practice-related decision making by medical and other healthcare professionals, but decision making by practicing behavior analysts has garnered little research attention. The purpose of this proof of concept study was to begin a translational research agenda toward understanding what variables influence behavior analyst decision making and precisely how those variables do so. Behavior analyst decision making often involves data and the most fundamental characteristics of data are those indicating data trustworthiness—validity, reliability, and accuracy. To isolate a single independent variable, we used a lengthening data path procedure to parametrically assess how reducing data accuracy changed decisions to continue or modify an intervention in 30 students of behavior-analytic masters or doctoral programs. When data accuracy was 100%, most participants waited 9–10 trials before intervening. When data accuracy was below 60%, most participants waited 4–6 trials before intervening. To begin exploring potential behavioral processes underlying the influence of data accuracy on practice-related decisions, we also examined how well one popular description of decision making described participant choice—probability discounting. Probability discounting described the pattern of choices well for 16 of the 30 participants, suggesting other analytic frameworks should be explored. Nevertheless, data accuracy systematically influenced the majority of participants choices to continue or modify an intervention, although the degree of influence differed on an individual basis.

Research priorities and identification of a health-service delivery model for psoriasis from the UK Psoriasis Priority Setting Partnership.

Psoriasis impacts the health and psychosocial functioning of patients, conferring a significant economic burden on healthcare systems. There remain unmet needs in psoriasis care, which if addressed by research, could improve clinical outcomes. To research priorities and identify a health service delivery model from the UK Psoriasis Priority Setting Partnership (PsPSP). Between July 2017 and November 2018, we invited people with lived experience of psoriasis and healthcare professionals to (i) identify unmet needs, and (ii) prioritize the order in which these should be addressed by research. We collaborated with the Psoriasis Association and used methodology established by the James Lind Alliance, which pioneers the joint setting of research priorities by patients and clinicians worldwide. In our initial harvesting survey (Survey 1), 2133 questions were submitted by 805 individuals. Submissions that had not been answered by research (true uncertainties) were supplemented with evidence gaps from systematic reviews/guidelines published in the previous 5years and refined to produce 55 indicative questions. Voting in Survey 2, by 1154 individuals, enabled a shortlist of questions, which were prioritized during the final workshop to produce a top 20 list of research questions. Submissions on health service delivery (5.8% of the total submissions), which were analysed separately, described a blueprint for psoriasis care. The PsPSP will inform the translational research agenda, ensuring that future research is relevant for the needs of people with psoriasis and those who manage the disease. Submissions on health service delivery describe a model of holistic, patient-focused care providing high-quality, effective management for patients with psoriasis.

Onygenalean Fungi as Major Human and Animal Pathogens

During the last two decades, many onygenalean pathogens were discovered, redefined, or re-classified from existing taxa into clusters of micro-species, among which the original genotypes often appeared to be uncommon and exceptional. The impact of these developments on the diagnosis and treatment of fungal diseases remains to be determined in most instances. This exciting collection of invited articles provides a full flavor of ongoing changes in the knowledge about taxonomy, genetics, ecology, epidemiology, and clinical spectra of human and animal pathogens classified in the order Onygenales. Recent developments have set the stage for an ambitious translational research agenda. Diagnostic mycology laboratories now need MALDI-TOF-MS spectra, PCR probes, and other specific tools to assist them in the rapid diagnosis of new species. Similarly, an educational set of type materials of new species needs to be readily available for enhanced expertise among the wider medical mycology community. As several new species were discovered retrospectively, it is crucial to expand the re-sampling to other fungal culture collections and archived paraffin tissues. Finally, clinical and laboratory investigations are needed to get an accurate assessment of the prevalence and impact of new pathogens as the cause of major fungal diseases.

Application of health behaviour theory to sleep health improvement

Although sleep hygiene is often used for broad sleep health promotion efforts, sleep hygiene education programmes are largely ineffective. These programmes are limited by their lack of a theoretical foundation. Health behaviour theory (HBT) has been used for decades to successfully predict and modify many health behaviours, but its use in the study of sleep health is rare. The purpose of this review is threefold. First, four dominant HBTs will be introduced. Second, the brief literature on HBT and sleep health will be reviewed. Lastly, a translational research agenda will be proposed. The present review concludes that HBT shows potential in both the prediction and modification of sleep health, and that there are several short- and long- term research goals to advance these efforts.

Synthetic Opioid Use and Common Injection-associated Viruses: Expanding the Translational Research Agenda.

The US is in the midst of a major epidemic of opioid addiction and related comorbidities. People with opioid use disorder (OUD) are at significant risk for transmission of several blood-borne pathogens including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV). Commonly abused opioids and their receptors promote viral replication and virus-mediated pathology. However, most studies demonstrating an adverse effect of drugs of abuse have been conducted in vitro, the specific effects of synthetic opioids on viral replication have been poorly characterized, and the evaluation of opioid-virus interactions in clinically relevant populations is rare. Rigorous characterization of the interactions among synthetic opioids, host cells, and common injection-associated viral infections will require an interdisciplinary research approach and translational studies conducted on humans. Such research promises to improve clinical management paradigms for difficult-to-treat populations, facilitate rational public health policies given severely strained resources, and reveal additional pathways for novel target-specific therapeutic interventions. This mini-review examines the published literature on the effects of opioids on HIV, HBV, and HCV pathogenesis and proposes a series of scientific questions and considerations to establish a translational research agenda focused on opioid-virus interactions.

Supraventricular Arrhythmias in Athletes: Basic Mechanisms and New Directions.

Athletes are prone to supraventricular rhythm disturbances including sinus bradycardia, heart block, and atrial fibrillation. Mechanistically, this is attributed to high vagal tone and cardiac electrical and structural remodeling. Here, we consider the supporting evidence for these three pro-arrhythmic mechanisms in athletic human cohorts and animal models, featuring current controversies, emerging data, and future directions of relevance to the translational research agenda.

Is there room for attentional impairments in binge drinking? A commentary on Carbia et al. (2018)

Binge drinking is an excessive pattern of alcohol use, highly prevalent in adolescents and young adults. Several studies have explored the cognitive impairments associated with binge drinking, and Carbia et al. (2018) recently proposed a systematic review of these impairments. Although this review offers an insightful and up-to-date synthesis of this research field, the authors concluded that binge drinking is not associated with attentional impairments. We argue that such conclusion is premature. We identified published studies not mentioned by Carbia et al. (2018), which documented attentional impairments in binge drinking. In particular, a differential exploration of attentional networks has suggested that binge drinkers not only exhibit impairments for the executive control of attention, but also for its alerting network. We thus recommend a better consideration of attention in future experimental and translational research agendas.

Report and Research Agenda of the American Geriatrics Society and National Institute on Aging Bedside-to-Bench Conference on Urinary Incontinence in Older Adults: A Translational Research Agenda for a Complex Geriatric Syndrome.

The American Geriatrics Society, with support from the National Institute on Aging and other funders, held its ninth Bedside-to-Bench research conference, entitled "Urinary Incontinence in the Older Adult: A Translational Research Agenda for a Complex Geriatric Syndrome," October 16 to 18, 2016, in Bethesda, Maryland. As part of a conference series addressing three common geriatric syndromes-delirium, sleep and circadian rhythm disturbance, and urinary incontinence-the series highlighted relationships and pertinent clinical and pathophysiological commonalities between these conditions. The conference provided a forum for discussing current epidemiology, basic science, and clinical and translational research on urinary incontinence in older adults; for identifying gaps in knowledge; and for developing a research agenda to inform future investigative efforts. The conference also promoted networking involving emerging researchers and thought leaders in the field of incontinence, aging, and other fields of research, as well as National Institutes of Health program personnel.

British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Conference and Joint UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Meeting Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom Wednesday April 19-Friday April 21, 2017 Conference Abstracts.

British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Conference and Joint UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Meeting Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom Wednesday April 19-Friday April 21, 2017 Conference Abstracts.

Heart rate variability in critical care medicine: a systematic review

BackgroundHeart rate variability (HRV) has been used to assess cardiac autonomic activity in critically ill patients, driven by translational and biomarker research agendas. Several clinical and technical factors can interfere with the measurement and/or interpretation of HRV. We systematically evaluated how HRV parameters are acquired/processed in critical care medicine.MethodsPubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (1996–2016) were searched for cohort or case–control clinical studies of adult (>18 years) critically ill patients using heart variability analysis. Duplicate independent review and data abstraction. Study quality was assessed using two independent approaches: Newcastle–Ottowa scale and Downs and Black instrument. Conduct of studies was assessed in three categories: (1) study design and objectives, (2) procedures for measurement, processing and reporting of HRV, and (3) reporting of relevant confounding factors.ResultsOur search identified 31/271 eligible studies that enrolled 2090 critically ill patients. A minority of studies (15; 48%) reported both frequency and time domain HRV data, with non-normally distributed, wide ranges of values that were indistinguishable from other (non-critically ill) disease states. Significant heterogeneity in HRV measurement protocols was observed between studies; lack of adjustment for various confounders known to affect cardiac autonomic regulation was common. Comparator groups were often omitted (n = 12; 39%). This precluded meaningful meta-analysis.ConclusionsMarked differences in methodology prevent meaningful comparisons of HRV parameters between studies. A standardised set of consensus criteria relevant to critical care medicine are required to exploit advances in translational autonomic physiology.

Translational Cancer Nursing Research: What Will Your Contribution Be?

Over the past decade, reference to translational research has increasingly dominated our research semantic. There are multiple definitions of translational research, but the most commonly understood is the transfer of biomedical knowledge from bench to clinical trial and from clinical trial to bedside as a component of usual care. As an international community of cancer nurse clinicians, researchers, educators and leaders, it is our collective responsibility to redress this omission. This article depicts ways in which cancer nurses can, and already do contribute to knowledge translation.

Optimising Translational Research Opportunities: A Systematic Review and Narrative Synthesis of Basic and Clinician Scientists' Perspectives of Factors Which Enable or Hinder Translational Research.

IntroductionTranslational research is central to international health policy, research and funding initiatives. Despite increasing use of the term, the translation of basic science discoveries into clinical practice is not straightforward. This systematic search and narrative synthesis aimed to examine factors enabling or hindering translational research from the perspective of basic and clinician scientists, a key stakeholder group in translational research, and to draw policy-relevant implications for organisations seeking to optimise translational research opportunities.Methods and ResultsWe searched SCOPUS and Web of Science from inception until April 2015 for papers reporting scientists’ views of the factors they perceive as enabling or hindering the conduct of translational research. We screened 8,295 papers from electronic database searches and 20 papers from hand searches and citation tracking, identifying 26 studies of qualitative, quantitative or mixed method designs. We used a narrative synthesis approach and identified the following themes: 1) differing concepts of translational research 2) research processes as a barrier to translational research; 3) perceived cultural divide between research and clinical care; 4) interdisciplinary collaboration as enabling translation research, but dependent on the quality of prior and current social relationships; 5) translational research as entrepreneurial science. Across all five themes, factors enabling or hindering translational research were largely shaped by wider social, organisational, and structural factors.ConclusionTo optimise translational research, policy could consider refining translational research models to better reflect scientists’ experiences, fostering greater collaboration and buy in from all types of scientists. Organisations could foster cultural change, ensuring that organisational practices and systems keep pace with the change in knowledge production brought about by the translational research agenda.

Contextual analysis and the success of translational research.

The success of translational research can ultimately be judged by the degree to which it reduces the incidence and prevalence of psychological, behavioral, and physical disorders and the major factors influencing them. In our view, we currently place insufficient emphasis on assessing our impact on the social determinants of disorders. As a result, we are failing to affect the incidence and prevalence of critical disorders. Moreover, translational research fails to take into account the full range of interventions that could significantly reduce the incidence and prevalence of our most pressing disorders. These include policy changes, media, and broad cultural change movements. In this paper, we discuss the momentous achievements the tobacco prevention movement made over the last half-century, describe how the lessons gleaned from this success can apply to other prevention efforts, and contrast this success with progress made in battling other major public health concerns. We call for an expansion of the translational research agenda to develop and evaluate broader and more comprehensive strategies to affect well-being in entire populations.

Pain worlds: towards the integration of a sociocultural perspective of pain in clinical physical therapy.

The World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (WHO-ICF) model has been advocated as a model of function to conceptualize physical therapist practice. Among its advances, the WHO-ICF model explicitly recognizes the existence of social factors that may influence patients' and clients' understanding of pain. However, understandings of the historical, social and cultural processes that shape the individual and collective experiences of pain and the therapeutic relationship remain limited. We call for a more intentional and sustained dialogue between clinical practice and sociology to help elucidate the nature, characteristics, complexities and clinical implications of one specific element of the WHO-ICF model, environmental factors. The purpose of this review is to advocate for the continued adoption of a sociological lens to help physical therapists better understand the broader networks of people, ideologies and practices in which people 'in pain' are enmeshed and the historical, geographical and cultural spaces in which they operate. In this review, we discuss existing empirical findings in sociology to introduce the concept of 'pain worlds', which can be applied by physical therapists to help characterize the sociocultural factors identified in the WHO-ICF model. Pain worlds is designed to complement the WHO-ICF model and assist in developing interdisciplinary research agendas that illuminate and examine the role, significance and clinical implications of sociocultural and environmental dimensions of pain. We conclude with a brief set of recommendations for the development of such translational research agendas and call for the integration of pain worlds in clinical practice.

Climate change and energy security: an analysis of policy research

The literature on climate change’s impacts on energy security is scattered across disparate fields of research and schools of thought. Much of this literature has been produced outside of the academy by scholars and practitioners working in “think tanks,” government agencies, and international/multilateral institutions. Here we reviewed a selected set of 58 articles and reports primarily from such sources and performed textual analysis of the arguments. Our review of this literature identifies three potential mechanisms for linking climate change and energy security: Climate change may 1) create second-order effects that may exacerbate social instability and disrupt energy systems; 2) directly impact energy supply and/or systems or 3) influence energy security through the effects of climate-related policies. We identify emerging risks to energy security driven by climate mitigation technology choices but find less evidence of climate change’s direct physical impacts. We used both empirical and qualitative selection factors for choosing the grey literature sample. The sources we selected were published in the last 5 years, available through electronic media and were written in language accessible to general policy or academic readers. The organizations that published the literature had performed previous research in the general fields of energy and/or climate change with some analytical content and identified themselves as non-partisan. This literature is particularly valuable to scholars because identifies understudied relationships that can be rigorously assessed through academic tools and methodologies and informs a translational research agenda that will allow scholars to engage with practitioners to address challenges that lie at the nexus of climate change and energy security.

Daily Life or Diagnosis? Dual Perspectives on Perinatal Depression within Maternal and Child Health Home Visiting

This study describes a qualitative inquiry–informing program development in a maternal and child home visiting program. Low-income women's perceptions of the meaning and experiences of depression were ascertained through focus groups and interviews. Simultaneously, the study examines staff member perceptions and roles related to depression. Specific findings from clients and staff reveal culturally situated beliefs about depression and stressful life events; comparing and contrasting these beliefs offers a novel perspective on identification and intervention for maternal depression. This study offers a foundation for a translational research agenda that will be used for program and policy development to enhance mental health services situated within maternal and child health home visiting programs.

Rural medical schools and expansion of Australia's translational surgical research agenda

Rural medical schools and expansion of Australia's translational surgical research agenda