KDHRC Awarded New SBIR Funding for Sleeping Habits Intervention

The sun is not the only thing shining bright this summer – so is KDHRC! We are proud to announce we were awarded funding for Phase I of our SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program entitled “Personalized Approach to Habits- Sleep” (PATH-S). PATH-S will be an app to support healthy sleep habits among Black teens with asthma.

Sleep is fundamental to human productivity, health, and brain operations, but only 25 percent of high school students report getting enough sleep on an average school night. And while inadequate sleep is a problem that people of all ages, backgrounds, and health conditions may face, sleep challenges are more common among teens with asthma, and being Black increases the likelihood of both poor sleep and asthma. Consequently, this means Black teens with asthma experience worse sleep outcomes than White teens with asthma, and their sleep problems are likely to persist into adulthood.

PATH-S will address these health disparities using age-appropriate technology – casual gaming, intermittent reinforcement, and immediate feedback from a wearable technology device — to support Black teens with asthma to develop personalized habits to improve sleep quality and duration. The project’s Principal Investigator, Eric Twombly frames it: “With the support from the National Institutes of Health, PATH-S, or the Personalized Approach to Habits – Sleep, will be a ground-breaking app that revolutionizes the approach to sleep and improves quality-of-life outcomes for Black teenagers with asthma.”  We are excited to begin work on this important grant and make this dream (pun intended) a reality!