Heinz College Professor Rema Padman and her Collaborators Receive CHITA Award for Research on Digital Vaccines to Promote Health Literacy for Kids
By Jennifer Monahan
A team of researchers led by Professor Rema Padman of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and Heinz College alumnus Professor Rahul Ladhania (Ph.D. ‘19) of the University of Michigan School of Public Health recently won the Health Information Technology in Action award at the 14th Conference on Health IT and Analytics (CHITA).
The team, comprised of Padman, her longtime collaborator Bhargav Sri Prakash of FriendsLearn, Inc, and Lahania was recognized for their work on digital vaccines, which use neurocognitive training and implicit learning to promote children’s behavior change with healthier lifestyles. Their longitudinal field trial showed early evidence of the safety and effectiveness of a digital vaccine for infectious disease knowledge to encourage health hygiene practices among children.
"It is an honor to be awarded for our work in this field,” said Padman. “Enhancing the health literacy of both children and adults is a public health challenge worldwide. This field implementation project required extensive effort from a multidisciplinary research and technology team across the United States and India that included clinical trial and information technology (IT) support specialists, teachers, parents, school administrators and a boots-on-the-ground team of enthusiastic local college students.”
The research project is part of a series of randomized field trials on digital vaccines called “DVx-SCHOOL” - Digital Vaccine for Scalable Curricular Health Outcome Optimization and Learning. It merges gamification, technology, and health education through a mobile gaming application. The gamified app currently helps children learn about good nutrition, physical activity, and health hygiene practices with the goal of reducing infectious disease and preventable health challenges in the future. The trial was conducted with support from Dr. Usha Sriram, chief endocrinologist of Voluntary Health Services (VHS) hospital in Chennai, India, and included nearly 250 participants at the Panchayat Union Middle School, a Government School catering to underprivileged children outside Chennai.
“The CMU DVx-SCHOOL platform represents an exciting and innovative responsible and science-based AI in non-communicable-disease prevention,” Sriram said. The team believes that evidence-based digital platforms like DVx-SCHOOL have the potential to address the gap between the projected need for medical care, the current health system capacities, and the supply of trained clinicians in India’s rapidly growing economy by reducing the future burden of disease through scalable precision disease prevention approaches.
“To our knowledge, this study is the first to test how playing an AI-powered educational mobile health game for several months improves students’ knowledge of related health topics,” said Ladhania. “The game uses implicit learning techniques, so kids think they’re just having fun. Our findings suggest that DVx-SCHOOL could be a fun and exciting way for children to learn about healthy lifestyles and show that starting early in their lives can be effective.”
The CHITA conference draws scholars and thought leaders from more than 40 institutions annually. The gathering serves as a platform for exploring the latest advancements in the design, implementation and management of health information technology and analytics. In addition to the CHITA award, the team’s digital vaccine work was recognized by the Financial Times/International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) with a Transformational Business Award in 2022.
“The breakthroughs with digital vaccines continue to pave new frontiers and showcase the power of artificial intelligence to support health promotion and disease prevention around the world safely, effectively, ethically, and responsibly,” said Prakash. “Ultimately, that’s the big goal that motivates our whole team.”
An ongoing longitudinal clinical trial at the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is evaluating the impact of a Type 1 diabetes (T1D) extension of the DVx platform for children with T1D.
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About Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy
The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy is home to two internationally recognized graduate-level institutions at Carnegie Mellon University: the School of Information Systems and Management and the School of Public Policy and Management. This unique colocation combined with its expertise in analytics set Heinz College apart in the areas of cybersecurity, health care, the future of work, smart cities, and arts & entertainment. In 2016, INFORMS named Heinz College the #1 academic program for Analytics Education. For more information, please visit www.heinz.cmu.edu.