Clinical Research Directory

Intervention to Reduce Implicit Bias in Pharmacies

This study will follow the ADAPT-ITT model to apply the Prejudice Habit Breaking Intervention (PHBI) to pharmacists who have experience with or are willing to prescribe PrEP. We will first collect qualitative data through focus group discussions guided by the Health Equity Implementation Framework (HEIF) on determinants related to the intervention itself, pharmacists, and the community pharmacy context that may impact implementation of the PHBI. Then, we will use this information to adapt the PHBI in an iterative process involving topic experts, pharmacists, and PrEP users. We will then determine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary impact of the adapted PHBI to reduce implicit racial bias.

Robot-based Intervention to Improve Physical Activity in Older Adults

Physical inactivity is considered a global pandemic negatively impacting the health of over 60% of older adults in America. Interventions aimed at improving physical activity in older adults focus on training reflective processes such as providing information on health benefits of physical activity. These interventions generally find that participants improved their intentions to be physically active rather than supporting actual change in behaviours to become physically active. There is growing support for the idea that human behaviour is the result of a combination of quick automatic processes and slower reflective processes. Interventional studies have used cognitive bias modification tasks that target the quick automatic processes to retrain participant's bias. Such studies find that participant's bias towards diet, alcohol, and phobias can be altered using these cognitive bias modification tasks. In this study, the investigators developed a new training task using a robotic device that aims to retrain automatic bias towards physical activity and sedentary behaviours. The robotic device allows greater immersive environments for participants to interact with and be more engaged with the cognitive bias modification task. This interventional study is testing whether this new robot-based training and the protocol for assessing physical activity is feasible for retraining older adults' bias towards physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Participants will be examined on their daily physical activity using an accelerometer, their physical ability using functional tests, and their perceptions on physical activity using questionnaires. To determine whether this protocol is feasible, the investigators will examine participant recruitment and retention rates.