Our Research Focus

The Midwest Roybal Center for Health Promotion and Translation supports the design and testing of principle-driven, potent health promotion interventions that have strong promise of progressing through the NIH Stage Change Model. The Center continues to focus on designing interventions for older racial/ethnic minority adults but expands our focus to include cognitive health. The Center targets four thematic areas of focus to improve cognitive function, namely:

♦  Physical activity engagement and maintenance
♦  Enhancing mobility
♦  Harnessing technology to improve intervention scalability and fidelity
♦  Incorporating mechanisms of action that will sustain behavior change

Finally, the Center incorporates for the first time a Multi-modal ADRD Imaging and Connectomics Core that is enabling investigators to perform brain imaging, interpretation, and storage. The Center also promotes the uniform use across funded pilots of cognitive and physical activity measures from the NIH Toolbox; thereby, enabling the comparison of common outcomes across diverse samples and interventions.

Midwest Roybal Center Pilot Studies

Roybal 6 Year 2

Shuaijie Wang, PhD

Shuaijie Wang, PhD
College of Applied Health Sciences
Email: sjwang4@uic.edu

Innovative Cognitive-Motor Training for Prevention of AD/ADRD: Leveraging Technology into CogXergaming

This Stage-II RCT proposal highlights an innovative approach to enhance physical and cognitive functions in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (OAwMCI). The novel CogXergaming training program combines advanced computer vision technology with a cloud-based platform to deliver scalable, accessible, and engaging cognitive-motor training. This aligns with the Roybal Mission of promoting health and enhancing the quality of life in populations at risk for ADRD.

Jaclyn Maher, PhD

Jaclyn Maher, PhD
UNC Greensboro
Email: jpmaher@uncg.edu

Manipulating action plans to improve physical activity behavior and cognitive health in older adults

This Stage 1 trial will identify an optimized action planning approach based on planning consistency to enhance physical activity (PA) and cognitive functioning in older adults. Our approach is a 3-group randomized controlled trial with a 6-month intervention and a 3-month follow-up. Older adults (N = 148, ≥60 years) currently inactive or insufficiently active based on PA guidelines will be randomly allocated in a 1:1:1 ratio into one of three action planning interventions groups: non-PA planning (generic weekly action planning), PA planning (weekly action planning for PA) and PA trial and error planning (different weekly PA action plans for 6 weeks, then encouraged to use their preferred plan for the remaining weeks).

Midwest Roybal Center Pilot Studies

Roybal 6 Year 1

Robert Motl, PhD

Robert Motl, PhD
College of Applied Health Sciences
Email: robmotl@uic.edu

Behavioral Intervention for Lifestyle Physical Activity in Parkinson’s Disease

Stage-I RCT of a remotely-delivered, SCT-based behavioral intervention focusing on participation in lifestyle physical activity (LPA) for yielding increases in device-measured PA (primary outcome) and improvements in cognitive function, symptoms, and QOL (secondary outcomes) among physically inactive persons with Parkinson’s disease.

Susan Aguinaga, PhD

Susan Aguiñaga, PhD
College of Applied Health Sciences, UIUC
Email: saguina2@illinois.edu

Latinos Increasing Fuerza through Exercise & Diet (LIFTED)

RCT among Latina women ages 40-64 with CVD risk factors to compare the efficacy of a culturally tailored Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet plus Latin dance program plus strength training program compared to a culturally tailored MIND diet plus Latin dance program on CVD risk factors, MIND diet adherence, PA, cognitive performance, and psychological distress.