# Columbia Roybal Center for Fearless Behavior Change - Renewal

> **NIH NIH P30** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $1,121,471

## Abstract

The goal of the Columbia Roybal Center for Fearless Behavior Change is to advance behavioral
interventions that reduce psychological distress and improve health behaviors in midlife and older adults that
experience serious health events. Each year, millions of adults experience events such as heart attacks,
strokes, or life-threatening cancer diagnoses. For some, these events serve as a wake-up calls, or “teachable
moments,” and those patients acquire health behaviors that prevent recurrent events and slow disease
progression. Yet, many of these patients are highly distressed after these events, leading to substantial impact
on quality of life, health behaviors, and prognosis. For example, 1 in 3 patients develop PTSD symptoms after
cardiac arrest and critical illness, and 1 in 5 patients develop persistent depressive symptoms after heart
attacks. Those patients who are highly distressed are less likely to follow recommended health behaviors such
as taking medications, exercising, and having good sleep. We have shown that many patients avoid
medications because they are reminders of disease risk, and exercise because physiological changes (e.g.,
heart rate) are distressing reminders of the possibility of a recurrent event. Accordingly, our Roybal Center is
interested in advancing interventions that target these fear-based mechanisms for which interventions are
underdeveloped. There are already evidence-based interventions for reducing other common forms of
psychological distress after serious health events such as anxiety and depression. Our Center also aims to
conduct implementation research that accelerates the adoption of these effective interventions into practice.
Our Center will include a Behavioral Intervention Development Core that provides implementation science,
regulatory, and statistical support to trialists. In the first year, this Core will launch a Stage II randomized
clinical trial (N=90) testing a psychological intervention for PTSD (Acceptance and Mindfulness-Based
Exposure Therapy) that was that was previously developed and feasibility tested by our Center versus a
standard of care control (Present-Centered Therapy) in cardiac arrest survivors. This trial demonstrates our
capacity to advance interventions through the NIH Stage Model within our Center. In the first year, our
Center will also initiate a pragmatic cluster randomized trial (N= 50 clinicians; 200 patients) testing the effect of
an implementation strategy (a digital patient activation tool) versus usual care on the uptake of evidence-based
treaments for depressed patients with recent CVD events. This trial illustrates our Center’s capacity to
conduct Stage V research. Our Center will also include an Administrative Core responsible for soliciting
proposals for new trials consistent with our Center’s theme via a national competition. This Core will
collaborate with NIA’s Stress Measurement Network and Science of Behavior Change program to ensure
robust measurement of b...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10875092
- **Project number:** 2P30AG064198-06
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Ian Matthew Kronish
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $1,121,471
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2019-09-15 → 2029-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10875092

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10875092, Columbia Roybal Center for Fearless Behavior Change - Renewal (2P30AG064198-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10875092. Licensed CC0.

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