Improving Early Access to Autism Services through a Technology-Enhanced Implementation Strategy for Pediatric Primary Care

The purpose of this K23 Career Development Award is to support the applicant in becoming an independent investigator with expertise in implementation science, to study strategies that increase the uptake and use of evidence-based autism services, and to measure the system-level impact of these efforts. Building on the applicant’s existing background in autism health services research and mixed methods, the proposed career development plan will achieve this long-term goal through a combination of implementation science training program activities, coursework, workshops, seminars, and mentored research. These activities will serve as learning vehicles for new skills and knowledge across the following three short-term training goals: 1.) learn to use human-centered design with embedded community-engaged research methods to improve acceptability and usability of interventions and implementation strategies; 2.) gain expertise in the design and conduct of pragmatic, hybrid clinical trials that target effectiveness and implementation outcomes; 3.) learn to evaluate implementation strategies and interventions at the system-level. Training in these areas will support the applicant’s achievement of the following research aims: 1.) adapt the ECHO Autism: STAT Early Diagnosis (EDx) implementation strategy to utilize a biomarker-based diagnostic tool for patients 16-to 30-months old, in a manner that maximizes acceptability and usability; 2.) examine feasibility and acceptability of testing ECHO Autism: STAT EDx vs. ECHO Autism: Technology-Enhanced EDx through a pilot cluster randomized hybrid type 3 trial; 3.) explore differences in time from autism screen to diagnostic ascertainment between 3 groups of patients with positive autism screening results across a large network of pediatric primary care sites: those served by PCPs assigned to each of the two pilot study conditions, and those from all other network sites that did not enroll in the pilot. These research and training goals will be carried out under the co-primary mentorship of Dr. Lawrence Scahill, an expert in autism clinical trials, and Dr. Sarabeth Broder-Fingert, an expert in applications of implementation science to autism health services research; and co-mentorship from Dr. John Constantino, an expert in biomarker-based and environmental influences of autism as well as system-level change to improve mental and behavioral health care. These career development and research activities will occur within a robust infrastructure for training and community-engaged autism research, leveraging strengths of Emory University School of Medicine, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, the Marcus Autism Center, Project ECHO, and a network of over 175 pediatric primary care practices across Georgia. This K23 proposal is aligned with the NIMH’s Strategic Plan Goal 4: to advance mental health services to strengthen public health. With further training, the applicant is poised to begin a trajectory of work as an independent investigator to promote accessible, early autism services, ultimately improving outcomes for children. Project Number: 1K23MH141306-01 | Fiscal Year: 2026 | NIH Institute/Center: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) | Principal Investigator: JOCELYN KUHN | Institution: EMORY UNIVERSITY, ATLANTA, GA | Award Amount: $196,990 | Activity Code: K23 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZMH1 ERB-K (02)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11215513