Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/894235
Dr. Martha Sajatovic, MD, Receives International Brain Health Grant, Joins New Diabetes Research Project Team M A R T H A S A J A T O V I C , M D , Professor of Psych iat r y a nd of Neurology at Case Western Reserve Un iver sit y (C W RU ) S cho ol of Medicine, Willard Brown Chair in Neurological Outcomes Research, and Director of the Neurologica l and Behavioral Outcomes Research Center at Universit y Hospita ls (UH) Cleveland Medical Center, is the recent recipient of two major research grants totaling more than $4.9 million. As principa l investigator (PI), Dr. Sajatovic will lead a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty Internationa l Center for Hea lth grant in Tanzania with colleagues at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Services to reduce the burden of chronic psychotic disor- ders using a customized adherence enhancement program combined with injectable, long-acting antipsy- chotic medication. The combined treatment approach was developed by Dr. Sajatovic's team in Cleveland. Clevela nd collaborators include Jennifer Levin, PhD, of UH a nd CWRU, and Carol Blixen, PhD, RN of CWRU. This grant is funded to CWRU for two years in the amount of $275,000. Fogarty Center grants are named in memory of Congressman John Fogarty of Rhode Island who believed passionately that opportunities to support research and training on an international basis would improve the health of the American people. Now in its 50th year, Fogarty grants have funded research around the world. A key feature of the program is using US investigators and teams to help build crucial research capacity in low and middle income countries. Most Foga r ty resea rch has been focused on infectious diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis. Dr. Sajatov ic's project ta rgets an emerging focus for the Fogarty Center — chronic diseases such as menta l disorders, which place a significant burden on people in the developing world. Dr. Sajatovic trav- eled to Tanzania in October 2017 to meet with colleagues on the grant. The second grant, from the Patient- C ent er e d O ut c om e s R e s e a r c h Institute (PCORI) and in collabora- tion with two principal investigators from the University of Colorado Denver (Bethany Kwan, PhD, and Jeanette Waxmonsky, PhD) is for a diabetes intervention project compar- ing two evidence-based treatments, patient-dr iven diabetes Sha red Medical Appointments (SMAs) vs. standardized diabetes SMAs. The curriculum to be used is Targeted Training for Illness Management (TTIM), a 12-session modular group intervention developed in Cleveland by Dr. Sajatovic and her team. For the patient-driven SM A s, patients choose the topics and the order of sessions from the TTIM curriculum, which is delivered col- laboratively by the multidisciplinary care team consisting of several pro- fessional providers (health educator, medica l provider and behaviora l health provider) and a lay worker (diabetes peer mentor). The prima r y patient-centered o u t c o m e , s e l e c t e d b y p a t i e n t stakeholders, is diabetes distress. S e c o n d a r y o u t c o m e s i n c l u d e autonomy support, quality of life, and diabetes self-management behav- iors, clinical outcomes (hemoglobin A1C, blood pressure, and body mass index), patient reach and engage- ment , a nd pra c t ice -level va lue and sustainability. Dr. Sajatovic will serve as a co- investigator to the project which is awarded for four years in the amount of $4.7 million. ■ 2 2❱❱❱❱❱ L O C A L D O C S I N N A T I O N A L N E W S