Johnson & Johnson Innovation Announces Awardees of the Decoding Disparities QuickFire Challenge

"For communities of color in the United States, we understand that health disparities may take many forms, including higher rates of chronic disease, increased burden of illness, and significant barriers to accessing care," shared Anastasia G. Daifotis, M.D, Chief Scientific Officer, Janssen North America Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Scientific Affairs, LLC.  "For this reason, we were proud to launch this QuickFire Challenge to inspire and help advance research that could pave the way for more equitable healthcare and improved health outcomes."

Each Awardee of this QuickFire Challenge is attempting to inspire and advance data-driven methodologies or technologies with the potential to better detect, understand, or reduce health disparities.  For example:

• Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers aims to promote continuity of care for individuals with mental health needs who present in the emergency department by developing the capacity to collect, analyze, and report data on the social and systemic barriers these individuals face.
• Department of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California aims to develop an innovative approach to delivering community mental health services through embedded counseling within a cultural center for Black collegians.
• A team from Emory University aims to create a social determinants of health (SDOH) insight score using novel, but widely available data, that can be linked to patient electronic health records (EHR). The score will be used to improve a provider's ability to tailor clinical recommendations for optimal management of patients with cardiovascular conditions.
• Lucia Health Guidelines has created an AI and cloud-based clinical decision support tool that has the potential to detect and treat atrial fibrillation at the point of care.

The challenge invited applications from innovators working on research methodologies, tools, or technologies applied in therapeutic areas of interest to the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson with special focus on: Mental Health, Cardiovascular Disease, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Specific considerations included the integration of population health data to identify gaps within communities of color and provide actionable insights to inform interventions to address barriers to equitable access to health care across the patient journey.

To help advance their research, the awardees will receive a combined total of $600,000 in grant funding, access to the global Johnson & Johnson Innovation—JLABS network, and mentorship from experts at the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.

"We received exceptional responses from entrepreneurs, academics, and researchers for the Decoding Disparities QuickFire Challenge. The applicants showed ingenuity, submitting many data-driven approaches designed to address the root causes of health inequities," said Melinda Richter, Global Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS2. "We are excited to work closely with the four awardees to help scale their ideas and deliver potential breakthrough solutions for traditionally underserved communities."

An independent panel evaluated and selected the awardees using a criteria that included uniqueness, feasibility, and generalizability of the idea; thoroughness of approach; ability to collect and analyze factors driving disparities that could potentially inform strategies and tactics that improve health outcomes in racial/ethnic groups and underserved populations; potential measurable impact of data integration, analytics, and patient engagement to improve population health outcomes both immediately and in the long-term; and alignment to the areas of strategic focus and expertise for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Johnson & Johnson Innovation has developed the QuickFire Challenge platform with the aim to help enable potential groundbreaking science and health solutions by encouraging students, entrepreneurs, researchers, and start-up companies to tackle some of the world's most challenging problems in healthcare.