STAGE TRIALS: Stage-model Training Approaches for Guiding Effective Translation of behavioral Research Interventions in Aging TriaLS

About This Grant

Abstract The STAGE TRIALS short-term curriculum will develop, deliver, and evaluate short-term education that will launch successful programs of behavioral interventions, informed by the NIH Stage, mechanism-focused conceptual model. Providing short courses in NIH Stage Model conceptualization and application will result in an increased scientific workforce trained in the NIH Stage Model, which is essential to advancing our nation's healthy aging research agenda. This curriculum will ultimately inform public health policy about scalable, implementable behavioral interventions, enrich our scientific approaches, and reduce our nation's healthy aging disparities. We can achieve the goal of more diverse behavioral intervention scientists informed by the NIH Stage Model only by providing an effective curriculum for producing a productive, engaging, and rewarding program of behavioral intervention research. Our target program participant population will be national and representative of the nation. It will include those from any biomedical science typically funded by NIH, who are interested in learning how to launch a successful, NIH Stage-informed program of behavioral intervention research. The STAGE TRIALS Program will be comprised of 12 4-6-hour days of virtual training, dispersed across the summer months, and include attendance at the National Institute on Aging Roybal annual professional meeting for the Roybal P30 centers. Through lectures, discussions, case studies, and writing boot camps, participants will engage with the core principles of the NIH Stage Model, delve into each stage's specific requirements, and explore the critical role of mechanisms of behavior change, fidelity, and scalability. Participants will demonstrate a strong understanding of the NIH Stage Model, its application to healthy aging interventions, and the importance of key concepts, such as mechanisms of behavioral change, fidelity, and scalability. Their understanding of the model will enable them to critically analyze existing interventions and research studies. Knowledge acquisition will be tested in pre-program and post- program exercises by participants providing reviewer comments on Stage-informed clinical trial proposals. This proposed curriculum will be innovative in providing training focused on NIH Stage model-informed conceptual thinking and applied skill-building to an entire program of research. The long-term evaluation outcome of this program will be the successful submission of an appropriately powered, appropriately staged, mechanism-testing, fidelity-monitoring, randomized controlled behavioral trial to any granting agency, including but not limited to the NIA Roybal network's national competition.