The Center for Behavioral Health, Media, and Technology (CBHMT) was formed earlier this year from the merger of the Center for Behavioral Health and Smart Technology led by Dr. Bruce Rollman, and the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health (MTH) led by Dr. Brian Primack until his June 2019 departure for the University of Arkansas. As before, the merged Center remains a cross-disciplinary group within the Division of General Internal Medicine’s larger Center for Research on Health Care and facilitates interventional research conducted at the intersection of clinical medicine, behavioral health, media, and health care technology to improve health outcomes.
CBHMT supports the careers of new and junior investigators under the guiding principles of our “–SHIP” framework: MentorSHIP, SponsorSHIP, PartnerSHIP, RelationSHIP, FriendSHIP, and ScholarSHIP.
Within the –SHIP framework, the Center has several collaborative clinical research opportunities underway including: (1) MentorSHIP for Dr. Charles Jonassaint’s new $4.3M PCORI award for his trial of on-line pain management for sickle cell patients; and Dr. Cesar Escobar-Viera’s online app for LGBTQ rural youth funded through the ETUDES Center; (2) SponsorSHIP of the 11th Scientific Meeting of the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions (ISRII) scheduled to take place on the Pitt campus in September 2020 (postponed to September 2021 due to COVID); (3) PartnerSHIP as the Methods Core for the NIMH Funded ETUDES Center to prevent adolescent suicide (PI: D. Brent, Psychiatry); and between Center researchers Drs. Jaime Sidani, Kar-Hai Chu, and Ms. Beth Hoffman and faculty in the Graduate School of Public Health to study the discordance of tobacco-related terminology between adolescents and their health care providers; (4) RelationSHIPs including one between Center core faculty member and Pitt’s Mobile Sensing + Health Institute (MoSHI) founder Dr. Carissa Low and Dr. Rollman that led to Dr. Rollman’s revised proposal (A1) to utilize smartphone technology to promote cardiac rehabilitation for heart failure patients; and between CBHMT, ETUDES, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Human Computer Interaction Institute to sponsor a $100,000Innovation Contest this Summer; (5) FriendSHIPs between Center members through a dinner reception at Dr. Rollman’s home this past Winter, monthly breakfast meetings, and now twice monthly Zoom calls to maintain contact; and (6) ScholarSHIP with numerous papers and national presentations by Center faculty, staff, and trainees.