Modeling Adolescent Health Care Decision-Making for Vaccines: A Community- Based Participatory Approach

NIH RePORTER · NIH · R01 · $633,148 · view on reporter.nih.gov ↗

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the US, state- and local-level laws on medical care for minors can directly impact population health. However, the influence of real-world effects (e.g., rural access to providers) on this association is unclear. Currently, healthcare knowledge and access for minors largely differs by state, increasing the risk of negative health outcomes. Traditional efforts that apply mathematical models to examine population-level outcomes do not account for the various state healthcare laws, geospatial effects, local sociodemographics, or individual behaviors. To accurately study the impact that adolescent healthcare laws as well as other real-world effects have on adolescent health, researchers need to apply a comprehensive framework that integrates legal policy with health outcomes. Our proposed model will apply a legal epidemiology framework that integrates legal and health data. It will leverage US census data in an agent-based simulation (Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics; FRED), which was designed to include system-level, sociodemographic, geospatial, and individual effects in its simulation models. Our multidisciplinary team—with expertise in adolescent health, health law, and computational modeling—will merge state- and local-level healthcare laws with nationally representative census data within FRED. We will collaborate with different partners—including parents, school employees, and pediatricians, among others—to understand the impact of these laws on adolescent health, explore potential interventions with different legal restrictions, and inform a simulation model. First, we will develop a comprehensive legal dataset of state- and local-level healthcare laws that impact minors. Second, we will collaborate with partners to understand the influence of these laws and design potential interventions that can improve adolescent health outcomes. Third, we will model the effects of various laws, real-world effects, and potential interventions in FRED to assess the impact of these factors on adolescent health. In summary, this project will result in a comprehensive legal dataset of healthcare laws for minors and an evidence-based predictive model of adolescent health in real-world conditions. The model’s flexibility can inform researchers on the impact of various state- and local-level laws and other real-world effects that can impact population health.

Key facts

NIH application ID
10767519
Project number
1R01HD110428-01A1
Recipient
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
Principal Investigator
Kar-Hai Chu
Activity code
R01
Funding institute
NIH
Fiscal year
2024
Award amount
$633,148
Award type
1
Project period
2024-09-16 → 2029-05-31