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Expertise. Innovation. Collaboration.

Clinical Trial Support and Behavioral Interventions

Clinical Support and Recruitment

Cancer Information and Population Health Resource (CIPHR)

The Cancer Information and Population Health Resource (CIPHR) provides a prospective data linkage between metrics of cancer incidence, mortality, and burden in North Carolina and data sources at an individual and aggregate level that describe health care, economic, social, behavioral, and environmental patterns.

Rapid Case Ascertainment

Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA) is an acceleration of the North Carolina Central Cancer Registry’s reporting process for quick identification of cancer patients throughout the state. Hospitals/facilities send pathology reports from one to six months of a cancer diagnosis.

CFAR Clinical Core

The CFAR Clinical Core offers support with recruitment, enrollment, protocol design development and implementation. Core personnel are available to assist with regulatory and study coordinator support, data and specimen collection, web-based tracking and data entry, database design and data management.

The Clinical Core maintains the UNC CFAR HIV Clinical Cohort (UCHCC), with adjudicated clinical outcomes data and samples, HIV sequences, behavioral surveys and patient reported outcomes. Ongoing collaborations exist with the CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems and other national and international cohort studies. For more information visit the UCHCC website.

CFAR International Core

The CFAR International Core’s activities are bi-directional: we connect UNC investigators to key populations in Africa and Asia, and we connect in-country scientists to research and training resources at our US location.

Consultation and expertise in human subject research and ethics in foreign countries
Centralized management of US and foreign IRB submissions and other regulatory matters
Support for new protocol development through the review of new funding submissions, including design, approach, budget, grant assembly, internal review, and obtaining letters of support
Connecting international scientists to resources and expertise on the UNC campus
Developing new lab capacity and supporting the introduction of new assays
Supporting standardization of data collection and database maintenance across sites

Research Participant Registry Core, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities

Research Participant Registry Core, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, supports research projects on developmental disabilities at UNC. UNC researchers who have been approved for IDDRC membership are eligible to access core services.
The Core assists with recruitment, public relations and referral source development, and grant preparation, and maintains confidential databases of people who want to be contacted about research studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, links eligible participants with research studies, and keeps registry members informed about the latest advancements in research at UNC.

NC TraCS Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC)

NC TraCS Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) offers investigators a variety of research support services, including access to inpatient and outpatient examination rooms, a staff of highly-skilled research professionals, an investigators laboratory, nutrition research support, and an oral health research facility. In addition, CTRC staff can assist you with study budgeting, letters of support, and research coordinator orientation.

 

Clinical Research Services, Nutrition Obesity Research Center

Clinical Research Services, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, provides assistance to (a) investigators with little or no clinical research experience and (b) for studies that may or may not have funding or a protocol in place, including guidance on developing, launching, and problem solving for clinical or translational research studies.

 

Program Evaluation

Abacus Evaluation

Abacus Evaluation is a Research Service Center committed to amplifying the impact and effectiveness of programs, centers, and projects through innovative evaluation strategies, state of the art data analysis methods, and collaborative research design. While Abacus specializes in evaluation, our team will also partner with your team from early planning to program design to data collection, management, and analysis to reporting to ensure that you build and enact a robust and comprehensive program/project.
The Abacus team brings extensive experience in researching and evaluating diverse programs at the local, state, and national levels. We see evaluation as the means by which to identify areas for growth and innovation, drive change, empower communities, and amplify a program’s effectiveness and impact. The team is passionate about helping our partners achieve their aims while understanding if, why, and how they are making authentic, lasting change through their work.

Participant Technologies and Interventions

CHAI Core (Connected Health for Applications and Interventions)

The CHAI Core (Connected Health for Applications and Interventions), is a one-stop shop for researchers, with a strong focus on the technologies needed to reach out to today’s study participants. Services offered include:

  • Development of websites, including intervention and decision-aid websites
  • Development of web-based/mobile applications
  • Development of back-end databases for research content delivery and data collection
  • Graphic design (including logo, print, and web, and mobile design)
  • Usability and cognitive testing
  • Design and implementation of formative qualitative strategies

NORC CHAI Core: Interventions

The Intervention Subcore is part of the UNC NORC Clinical & Community Assessment & Intervention Core. The subcore has existed as a part of the NIDDK-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center since the year 2000. The Intervention Subcore fills a critical gap in existing resources for nutrition researchers by facilitating member access to a broad range of research services related to intervention development and evaluation integrated under one core.

The purpose, goals, and objectives of the subcore are to offer state-of-the-art resources and techniques for the development of high-quality and rigorously-evaluated behavioral science interventions aimed at improving nutrition, preventing and treating obesity, and general health promotion.

NORC CHAI Core: Behavioral Assessment

Since its start in 2004, CHAI Core: Behavioral Assessment has been providing cutting edge services to researchers across the nation in the areas of diet and physical activity. Our areas of expertise include: 24-hour diet recalls, Food Frequency Questionnaires, Food Records, Accelerometry, Physical Activity Assessments, and Proposal Development.

Innovation Services Hub

Innovate Carolina’s Innovation Services Hub offers

  • Patent Landscaping and Market Research Services: The service offers custom analytical reports that provide a strategic view of the competitive landscape, current and projected market conditions, as well as opportunities for grants and funding to complete research and launch new products, services and businesses. (details on website)
  • Design Thinking Services: Innovate Carolina offers in-house expertise and consultation in design thinking based on the world-renown IDEO method. Our team works with UNC faculty, staff and students – as well as external organizations – to integrate this methodology into your research, teaching and practice. (details on website)
  • Venture Services: Innovate Carolina helps accelerate startup development and growth through services that connect you with both student talent and industry peers for mentoring and potential investment opportunities.

Health on Wheels 

Health on Wheels is a mobile medical unit available to UNC researchers, UNC clinicians and other UNC collaborators, making it possible to bring a small exam room to venues throughout the state. The medical unit includes an exam table, two blood-drawing chairs, a hand-washing sink and other basic exam room features. The mobile unit provides a comfortable and private setting for conducting medical interventions, including health exams, screenings and interviews.

UNC Patient-Reported Outcomes Core (PRO Core)

UNC Patient-Reported Outcomes Core (PRO Core) is committed to bringing the patient’s voice into health care. PRO Core offers scientific consulting and statistical support, and hosts an electronic research data collection system that is tailored to support research involving patient-reported outcomes and other types of patient-generated health data. PRO Core’s electronic data capture system is suitable for both single-site and multi-site clinical studies. PRO Core frequently supports NIH and PCORI-funded trials evaluating novel interventions and the integration of patient-reported outcomes assessments into routine clinical care.   Services include:

  1. Programming and customizing an electronic research data collection system (pro.unc.edu) that is tailored to your clinical research workflow.  Our research data collection system offers numerous features, including full programmer-level support on system setup and design, workflow tailoring, and technical issues; design of electronic study forms with skip patterns, validations, and calculated scoring; multi-modal survey administration i.e. smart phone, tablet, laptop, interactive voice response (IVR), computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), and paper entry; support for multiple languages; support for dyadic assessment; support for computer-adaptive testing (CAT) using item-response theory (IRT); support for complex data collection scheduling, i.e. longitudinal survey administration, repeating instruments, and time zones; workflows tailored to inpatient, outpatient, or community settings and populations with limited literacy and/or internet access; integration of wearables and IoT device data; interfacing with other clinical data collection platforms (e.g. Medidata Rave); real-time alerts based on participant responses; personalized reports for patients or clinicians; automated reminders for study staff and patients; dashboards and reports for monitoring data collection and survey completion; support for multi-site studies as a central data repository; support for pilot/feasibility studies, including support for iterative study design; and more.
  2. Scientific support on study design, selection of valid and reliable measures, optimal methods for administering surveys in your study population, guidance on data analysis; scientific review of research proposals, study protocols, questionnaires, interview guides, analysis plans, study findings, presentations, and manuscripts
  3. Psychometric consulting support including  data manipulation, survey design and scale development, power analysis and sample size calculations (effect-size-based & simulation-based), psychometric evaluations (reliability & validity), test scoring (classical test theory & item response theory), missing data handling, and mathematical and statistical modeling (GLM, SEM, supervised learning, etc.).