# Increasing the health equity and  population-level impact of a digital therapeutic for smokers with psychiatric illness

> **NIH NIH K02** · DUKE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $121,185

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT
The goal of this Independent Scientist Award (K02) is to seek five years of training and protected time to
enable and expand the work of a newly established independent investigator. The candidate’s laboratory, the
Access to Behavioral Health for All (ABHA) Lab, is supported by a recent R01 (Parent Study; DA037276;
March 2020-2025) that will evaluate the efficacy of a novel digital therapeutic (DTx) for smoking cessation
tailored to patients with serious mental illness. The candidate’s research to date has focused on the
development of DTx using user-centered design research, and the subsequent testing of their efficacy using
clinical trials methodology. However, efficacy trials do not always translate into real-world practice, nor are
tested treatments always adopted by racial and ethnic minorities. This gap is well documented in the
implementation science literature. A recent longitudinal epidemiological survey (N=40,181) showed that while
the smoking rates of Non-Hispanic Whites with serious psychological distress significantly declined over the
last decade, no significant declines occurred among their Black and Latino counterparts. This data accentuates
the critical need to develop DTx that have an equitable population health impact. Therefore, the five years of
protected time provided by this Independent Scientist Award will fundamentally enhance the candidate’s
current program of research by providing formal training and contact with expert collaborators in the following
key areas: (1) health equity and participatory research, (2) implementation science, and (3) DTx’s oversight,
marketing, and dissemination. The award will also support a convergent mixed-methods Ancillary Study based
on the RE-AIM framework, that will examine health equity and implementation science outcomes in the Parent
Study. This Independent Scientist Award will provide the necessary research experience and network of
collaborators to scale up widespread dissemination of DTx addressing the systemic challenges of racial/ethnic
minorities with tobacco use disorder and serious mental illness. Along with the planned collaborations with
national experts in each of the key training domains, this award will establish the conditions to pursue and
maintain this program of research in the future by protecting the candidate’s time from clinical responsibilities.
In the short term, the award will generate preliminary data to inform the design of a large pragmatic trial that
will evaluate equitable dissemination of DTx for smoking cessation in patients with serious mental illness. In
the long term the award will generate a new body of research rigorously examining racial and ethnic inequities
in DTx for addiction treatment, a new model for the equitable implementation and technology transfer of DTx
among racial/ethnic minorities, and mentoring opportunities for diverse junior scientists that will extend the
impact of this work beyond the candidate’s own program of r...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10457176
- **Project number:** 1K02DA054304-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** DUKE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Roger Vilardaga
- **Activity code:** K02 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $121,185
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01 → 2027-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10457176

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10457176, Increasing the health equity and  population-level impact of a digital therapeutic for smokers with psychiatric illness (1K02DA054304-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10457176. Licensed CC0.

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