Decoding Disparities QuickFire Challenge

Awardees

	Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers The Camden Coalition aims to promote continuity of care for individuals with mental health needs who present in the emergency department by developing the capacity to collect, analyze, and report data on the social and systemic barriers these individuals face.
	Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California The Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences aims to develop an innovative approach to delivering empowering community mental health services through embedded counseling within a cultural center for Black collegians.
	Emory University A team from Emory University aims to create a social determinants of health (SDOH) insight score using novel but widely available data that can be linked to patient electronic health records (EHR). The score will be used to potentially improve a provider’s ability to tailor clinical recommendations for optimal management of patients with cardiovascular conditions.
	Lucia Health Guidelines Lucia Health Guidelines has created an AI and cloud-based clinical decision support tool with the aim to detect and treat atrial fibrillation (AF) at the point of care.

Overview

Many people in the United States face systemic obstacles to health due to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, known associal determinants of health(SDOH). Theresultincludes a disproportionate burden of disease and illness that is borne by racial and ethnic minority populations as well as the rural and urban poor.[1]Health disparities not only affect the groups facing health inequities, but limit overall improvements in quality of care, the health status for the broader population, and results in unnecessary costs.[2]

Population health data, or data on the health outcomes of a group of individuals, including the distribution of such outcomes within a specific group[3], can help identify at-risk populations, close communication gaps among individuals and care providers, identify cost-effective healthcare delivery models, provide access to available public health programs and services, and improve population health decision making[4],[5].

为此,强生公司创新,科尔aboration with Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC, is proud to launch the Decoding Disparities QuickFire Challenge. This challenge invites U.S.-based innovators – including entrepreneurs, health systems experts, technologists, researchers, academia, and students - to submit data-driven methodologies or technologies aiming to better detect, understand, or reduce the root causes of health inequities and inform the crucial next steps we need to take towards achieving equity.

In order to potentially accelerate promising methodologies or technologies, the innovator(s) with the best data-driven concepts, tools, or technologies aiming to better detect, understand, or reduce disparities prevalent in health care will receive grant funding in increments up to $200,000, $100,000, or $50,000, access to the global Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JLABS network and mentorship from experts at the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.

[1]Heckler M. Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black & Minority Health Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services; 1985. [Google Scholar]
[2]Disparities in Health and Health Care: Five Key Questions and Answers
Samantha Artiga Follow @SArtiga2 on Twitter , Kendal Orgera Follow @_KendalOrgera on Twitter , and Olivia Pham, Published: Mar 04, 2020
[3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447747/
[4]Parrish, 2010
[5]Kilbourne AM, Switzer G, Hyman K, Crowley-Matoka M, Fine MJ. Advancing health disparities research within the health care system: a conceptual framework. Am J Public Health. 2006;96(12):2113-2121. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2005.077628

Why this Challenge Matters

为了帮助深刻改变人类健康的轨迹eradicate racial and social injustice as a public health threat，重要的是要解决影响有色社区的健康不平等。

For racial and ethnic groups in the United States, health disparities take many forms, including higher rates of chronic disease, increased burden of illness, lack of access to basic care and significant barriers to initiating and maintaining treatment.[6]

Although significant progress has been made in narrowing the gap in health outcomes, disparities persist. For instance, a study revealed that heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death across race, ethnicity and gender.[7]However, African Americans were 30% more likely than white people to die prematurely from heart disease, and specifically, African American men were reported twice as likely as white people to die prematurely from stroke.[8]Another study shows that African Americans are 2.8 times more likely than white people to screen positive for peripheral arterial disease, and have 1.5 times the risk of limb loss as a result of the disease compared to their white counterparts.[9]

Adding to the urgency of these challenges, the U.S. population is becoming more diverse – with people of color projected to account for over half of the population in 2050.[10]

While no single organization can solve for the deeply rooted inequities, as a global healthcare leader, it is our goal to ignite, empower and amplify innovative potential solutions designed with the aim to solve for health inequities. By working together, we can help close the racial mortality gap, investing in culturally competent community care models that create health outcomes for people of color.

[6]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27308685/
[7]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425844/table/tab_2-1/?report=objectonly
[8]http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=19
[9]Tracie Ghidei Winta &柯林斯。(2012)。非洲一个mericans and Peripheral Arterial Disease: A Review Article. ISRN Vascular Medicine. 2012. 10.5402/2012/165653.
[10]https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/disparities-in-health-and-health-care-five-key-questions-and-answers/

Areas of Interest

We encourage US-based innovators to submit data-driven research methodologies, tools, or technologies leveraging data aiming to better detect, understand, or reduce the root causes of health inequities and inform the crucial next steps we need to take towards achieving equity, with considerations to the following:

• 人口健康管理的数据集成方面:
  • Identify gaps within communities of color that are amenable to change
  • 提供可行的见解，以告知潜在的目标干预措施和资源开发
• Barriers to equitable access to health care across the patient journey including the patient/physician level and clinical encounter:
  • 寻求护理：文化或SDOH相关的障碍，症状意识/识别，启用护理行为
  • Getting diagnosed
  • Treatment decision-making: access to primary/specialty care, access to evidence-based interventions, barriers to initiating and maintaining treatment
  • Physician/Patient relationship
  • Appropriate support to enable patient to access, fulfill, and adhere to treatment to maximize benefits and minimize risks

We’re seeking innovative ideas to better understand health disparities in therapeutic areas of interest to theJanssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, with priority focus areas including:

• Mental Health: Black populations are disproportionately impacted by some mental health conditions such as schizophrenia[11]and may experience detrimental medical, emotional, and physical effects due to racial profiling, among other factors.[12]However, African American mental health patients tend to be underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed[13], and untreated[14]when compared to the general U.S. population.

• Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD): The incidence of IBD are increasing in non-white populations[15]while at the same time, Black and Hispanic populations are growing in the U.S.9, one of the countries where the disease is most predominant.[16]最近的趋势表明epidemiolog的改变y of IBD, with previously low-incidence areas reporting a continuous rise in incidence. 9,[17],[18]Studies also point to correlation between disease-specific knowledge, disease perception, and patient trust to potentially improve patient engagement and adherence to IBD-related therapies.[19],[20],[21]It is therefore important to fully understand the epidemiology and progression of IBD in different racial and ethnic groups, and the effects of race and ethnicity on access to care, utilization of resources, and disease-related outcomes.
  
• Cardiovascular Disease:Both Black and Native American populations have been found to be disproportionately impacted by peripheral artery disease (P.A.D.) — a condition in which plaque builds up in the leg arteries[22],[23]- resulting in higher rates of amputation. In addition, Native Americans have been found to be substantially more likely to undergo amputation than are non-Hispanic Whites, even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, patient comorbidities, and hospital characteristics.[23]

[11]Adm Policy Ment Health 2004; 31: 241-252 [PMID:15160786 DOI:10.1023/B:APIH.0000018832.73673.54]
[12]Laurencin and Walker. Racial profiling is a public health and health disparities issue. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00738-2
[13]Woodward AT, Taylor RJ, Abelson JM, Matusko N. Major depressive disorder among older African Americans, Caribbean African Americans, and non-Hispanic whites: secondary analysis of the National Survey of American Life. Depress Anxiety. 2013;30(6):589–597
[14]https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.shtml
[15]Molodecky NA, Soon IS, Rabi DM, et al. Increasing incidence and prevalence of the inflammatory bowel diseases with time, based on systematic review. Gastroenterology 2012;142:46-54 e42; quiz e30
[16]Rogers BH, Clark LM, Kirsner JB. The epidemiologic and demographic characteristics of inflammatory bowel disease: an analysis of a computerized file of 1400 patients. J Chronic Dis 1971;24:743-73.
[17]Cosnes J, Gower-Rousseau C, Seksik P, et al. Epidemiology and natural history of inflammatory bowel diseases. Gastroenterology. 2011;140: 1785–1794.
[18]Tormey LK, Reich J, Chen YS, et al. Limited Health Literacy Is Associated With Worse Patient-Reported Outcomes in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2019;25:204-212. 109.
[19]Valerio MA, Peterson EL, Wittich AR, et al. Examining health literacy among urban African-American adolescents with asthma. J Asthma 2016;53:1041-7. 107.
[20]Christy SM, Gwede CK, Sutton SK, et al. Health Literacy among Medically Underserved: The Role of Demographic Factors, Social Influence, and Religious Beliefs. J Health Commun 2017;22:923-931. 108.
[21]Rubin DT, Krugliak Cleveland N. Using a Treat-to-Target Management Strategy to Improve the Doctor-Patient Relationship in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Am J Gastroenterol 2015;110:1252-6.
[22]12 Jan 2018https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.117.007425Journal of the American Heart Association.
[23]Rizzo JA, Chen J, Laurich C, Santos A, Martinsen BJ, Ryan MP, Kotlarz H, Gunnarsson C. Racial Disparities in PAD-Related Amputation Rates among Native Americans and non-Hispanic Whites: An HCUP Analysis. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2018;29(2):782-800. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2018.0058. PMID: 29805140.

Application Process

Proposals will be evaluated by an independent panel of reviewers and judges on their ability to meet the following criteria:

• Uniqueness of the idea
• Ability to collect and analyze factors driving disparities that could potentially inform strategies and tactics that improve health outcomes in racial/ethnic groups and underserved populations
• Potential measurable impact of data integration, analytics, and patient engagement to improve population health outcomes both immediately and in the long-term
• 这个想法的可行性和普遍性
• Alignment tothe areas of strategic focusand expertise for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson
• Thoroughness of approach

An independent review panel will evaluate applications for this QuickFire Challenge. Awardees will be required to provide access to top-line summary of output achieved through methodologies, tools, or technologies supported by grant funding.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC focuses on accelerating all stages of innovation worldwide and forming collaborations between entrepreneurs and Johnson & Johnson’s global healthcare businesses. Johnson & Johnson Innovation provides scientists, entrepreneurs and emerging companies with one-stop access to science and technology experts who can facilitate collaborations across the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer companies of Johnson & Johnson. Under the Johnson & Johnson Innovation umbrella of businesses, we connect with innovators through our regional Innovation Centers; Johnson & Johnson Innovation-JLABS; JJDC, Inc.; and our business development teams to create customized deals and novel collaborations that speed development of innovations to solve unmet needs in patients. JLABS provides the laboratories, expertise, education, tools and resources needed to help life science startups thrive, all with no strings attached. A Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center for Device Innovation at the Texas Medical Center (CDI @ TMC) has been established to accelerate the development of medical devices. For more information about Johnson & Johnson Innovation, please visit:www.jnjinnovation.com.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JLABS

Johnson & Johnson Innovation–JLABS(JLABS) is a global network of open innovation ecosystems, enabling and empowering innovators across a broad healthcare spectrum including pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer and health tech sectors to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world. JLABS achieves this by providing the optimal environment for emerging companies to catalyze growth and optimize their research and development by opening them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into the breakthrough healthcare solutions of tomorrow. At JLABS, we value great ideas and are passionate about removing obstacles to success to help innovators unleash the potential of their early scientific discoveries. JLABS is a no-strings-attached model, which means entrepreneurs are free to develop their science while holding on to their intellectual property. JLABS also produces campaigns to seek out the best science called QuickFire Challenges. For more information, visitwww.www.2574design.comor follow @JLABS.

About the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson

At Janssen, we're creating a future where disease is a thing of the past. We're the Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, working tirelessly to make that future a reality for patients everywhere by fighting sickness with science, improving access with ingenuity, and healing hopelessness with heart. We focus on areas of medicine where we can make the biggest difference: Cardiovascular & Metabolism, Immunology, Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Neuroscience, Oncology, and Pulmonary Hypertension. Learn more atwww.janssen.com. Follow us at@JanssenGlobal.