New endowed chair to tackle chronic health problems

The Centers of Economic Excellence program has created a new university-based research center to develop technology for helping people make healthier lifestyle choices and delay or prevent chronic diseases.

The Technology Center to Enhance Healthful Lifestyles is a partnership between the University of South Carolina and the Medical University of South Carolina.

The CoEE program board approved $3 million in funds for the center. Health Sciences South Carolina is providing a portion of the private funds to help match the state’s investment. Health Sciences South Carolina includes three of the state’s largest health care systems and its three research universities working together. Its mission is to improve health and economic well-being.

CoEE will recruit two endowed chairs to lead the center. USC will recruit an endowed chair to focus on technology applications for changes to health behavior. MUSC will recruit a chair to focus on technology applications to prevent and manage disease and reduce risk.

The endowed chairs will work with junior researchers and students to develop new technologies for health improvements, illness prevention and successful management of chronic health problems. In particular, they will develop interactive tools that can reach all segments of society and reduce health disparities.

Center directors believe that development of these tools will allow them to improve the quality of life in South Carolina.

“We have science to back up the fact that lifestyle choices can make the difference between health and disease,” said center co-director Dr. Steven Blair, who is also a professor in USC’s Arnold School of Public Health.

“For example, a large national trial demonstrated that a lifestyle program was twice as effective as medication in preventing diabetes in a high-risk population,” he said. “We believe that technology-based tools can help people prevent and manage chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, senile dementia, obesity, musculoskeletal problems and loss of function with aging.”

The center’s work could help South Carolina’s economy in several ways, USC President Harris Pastides said. First, it could help the state become a national leader in an emerging, high-growth field.

Second, it could result in marketable products such as new communications technologies and applications for individuals, work sites, health professionals and health systems. Products could include software and information systems for cell phones, smartphones, iPod technologies and computerized kiosks.

Third, it could help attract new software development, lifestyle coaching and computer hardware companies to the state and result in startup companies based on S.C. discoveries. These companies could result in hundreds of new, high-paying jobs in the state in the next decade, Pastides said.