Disability Health Promotion Resources with AI to Help People with Disabilities in the Deep South
Official title: Disability Health Promotion Research Center
Funded at University of Alabama at Birmingham · NIH-11412938 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This grant aims to use AI and behavioral insights to improve how researchers recruit, keep engaged, and use data from people with physical disabilities in the Deep South.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Alabama at Birmingham NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Birmingham, United States) |
| Project start | September 5, 2025 |
| Project end | August 31, 2030 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $1,240,404 |
| NIH project number | 5P50HD118626-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11412938 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Adults with physical disabilities living in the Deep South, especially Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, who participate in health-promotion or secondary condition prevention programs.
✕Less likely to help
Patients not currently enrolled in HP/SCP programs or not residing in the Deep South may not be directly impacted.
What this research studies
This project focuses on how to recruit people with physical disabilities, keep them engaged, and retain them in health-promotion programs. It will create AI-enabled tools to harmonize data from many studies and support analyses across datasets. The work will be centered in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, home to higher disability rates and environmental barriers, with an emphasis on improving adherence to HP/SCP interventions for patients with disabilities.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, patients with physical disabilities could see more reliable research findings and better-designed health-promotion programs tailored to their needs.
How similar studies have gone: Previous studies show AI and data-harmonization approaches can improve data integration and research efficiency, though application to HP/SCP in disability populations is still developing.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Young, Hui-Ju — University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Study coordinator: Young, Hui-Ju
Related research
Other NIH-funded projects on the same topics.
-
Coordinated Oral Health Promotion for Chicago Kids
A long-running study in Chicago is following children and their caregivers to find ways to reduce tooth decay and improve daily life for families.
-
Sex differences in language impairment and services for children and adults
A study examines why girls with language impairment may receive fewer speech services than boys and what that means for treatment.
-
How COVID school closures affected kids with or at risk for developmental differences
This NIH grant follows children aged 4 to 15 and their families to see how pandemic school closures impacted emotional well-being and parenting over three years.
-
Disability Community Engagement for All of Us Enrollment and Retention
A patient-friendly plan to help people with disabilities join and stay in the All of Us program so researchers can learn how to tailor care.
-
Digital adolescent dental health program to reduce tooth decay in at-risk youth
A digital program designed for lower-income 7th and 8th graders to help them avoid tobacco use and sugary drinks to lower the risk of tooth decay.
-
Neural targets for improving function in Veterans with alcohol use disorder and mild brain injury
This project tests a targeted brain-stimulation approach to help Veterans who have both alcohol use problems and mild traumatic brain injury improve daily functioning.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.