Preventive Medicine

A man and woman walking outdoors with text Preventive Medicine

"Preventive medicine focuses on the health of individuals, communities, and defined populations. Its goal is to protect, promote, and maintain health and well-being and to prevent disease, disability, and death." -From the American College of Preventive Medicine

Current Projects

Physical Activity Daily (PAD) Trial

Caroline R. Richardson, M.D., Co-Investigator

A randomized clinical trial to examine the effectiveness of an internet-based walking program compared to a telephone intervention, or the combination (internet-based with telephone counseling) for promotion of regular walking in patients with peripheral arterial disease.  NCT02767895

Trial protocol citation: Kumar AM, Lyden AK, Carlozzi NE, Sen A, Richardson CR, Jackson EA. The Physical Activity Daily (PAD) Trial: The rationale and design of a randomized controlled trial evaluating an internet walking program to improve maximal walking distance among patients with peripheral arterial disease. Contemporary Clinical Trials. December 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2017.12.009.

Effectiveness of an Automated Walking Program Targeting Veterans with COPD

Caroline R. Richardson, M.D., Principal Investigator

Funded by Veterans Administration Merit Award

This study is a two-arm randomized controlled trial of Stepping Up to Health (SUH), an automated Internet-mediated walking program. This study targets veterans with COPD. The three aims of the study are to evaluate the effectiveness of SUH to improve health-related quality of life and reduce hospitalizations in veterans with COPD, and to compare reach, participation and satisfaction between rural and urban subject.

Health Check-Up for Expectant Moms: Computer Intervention for HIV/STI Risk and Drug Use During Pregnancy

Golfo Tzilos, Ph.D., Principal Investigator

Funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) risk and alcohol/drug use during pregnancy are interconnected problems - both are associated with numerous negative consequences for the woman and the developing fetus. Yet, virtually no interventions have been developed or tested to target both of these serious health concerns during pregnancy. This study will:

  • Design and develop Health Check-up for Expectant Moms (HCEM), a computer-delivered brief intervention that targets both the risk for HIV/STIs and alcohol/drug use among low-income pregnant women

  • Determine the effect of HCEM in two-group, RCT

  • Inform the development of integrated HIV/STI and substance use interventions that are cost-effective, high-reaching, and widely disseminable within prenatal care.

Telemonitoring Enhanced Informal Caregiving to Support Diabetes Self Management

James E. Aikens, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Ananda Sen, Ph.D., Co-Investigator

Funded by National Institutes of Health

We propose a community-based RCT to test the hypothesis that providing formal support to "CarePartners" (CPs) (non-household family members) improves glycemic control, diabetes mellitus (DM)-related distress, and DM self-management.

MI-BP: mHealth to Improve Blood Pressure Control in Hypertensive African Americans

Lorraine Buis, PhD, MSI, Principal Investigator

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute ($2,970,128)

This study seeks to improve hypertension-related outcomes in a cohort of African Americans with uncontrolled hypertension between the ages of 25 and 55, through the use of MI-BP, a comprehensive, multiple health behavior change mobile intervention. This research is guided by three specific aims:

  • Determine the effect of MI-BP on blood pressure control at one year, compared with usual care controls, in a one-year RCT.
  • Determine the effect of MI-BP on secondary outcomes (physical activity, sodium intake, medication adherence) compared to usual care controls, in a one-year RCT.
  • Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of MI-BP compared to usual care methods.

Unveiling the role of physician implicit bias and communication behaviors in dissatisfaction, mistrust, and nonadherence in Black patients with Type 2 diabetes 

Michael D. Fetters, M.D., M.P.H., M.A., U-M Site Principal Investigator

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute Of Diabetes And Digestive And Kidney Diseases to Virginia Commonwealth University ($485,649) 

Study Dates: June 2018 - June 2021

The overall goal of this research is to identify physicians’ communication behaviors during medical interactions that are associated with physicians’ implicit racial bias and Black patients’ immediate (satisfaction, trust) as well as clinically important longer-term outcomes (adherence, healthcare utilization).

To achieve this goal, we target medical interactions involving Black patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) because nonadherence in Black patients with T2DM is particularly prevalent. Additionally, the patient-physician communication quality has been found to predict patient adherence to T2DM treatment regimens. We will use a mixed-methods design that integrates the strengths of inductive reasoning to explore which physicians’ communication behaviors during medical interactions matter from Black patients’ perspectives and deductive reasoning to identify theoretically and clinically important behaviors.

Our aims are:

  • To explore which physician communication behaviors during medical interactions are perceived negatively or positively by Black patients and why
  • To identify which physician communication behaviors identified in Aim 1 are associated with physicians’ implicit racial bias
  • To examine how physicians’ implicit racial bias impacts Black patients’ satisfaction, trust, adherence, and healthcare utilization through physicians’ communication behaviors.

Study Protocol Citation: Hagiwara N, Mezuk B, Lafata JE, Vrana SR, Fetters MD. Study protocol for investigating physician communication behaviours that link physician implicit racial bias and patient outcomes in Black patients with type 2 diabetes using an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. BMJ Open. 2018;8(10). doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022623.