SPeCTr Winter 2026 Newsletter

Talk With Me Baby (TWMB)

TWMB is a pilot study to demonstrate the efficacy of embedding universal language promotion (TWMB) in well-child care (WCC) visits for enhancing the home language environment. It is a multicenter trial in primary care clinics that serve rural/underserved children and families. Our second site for the study is West Virginia.

As a site, we enrolled 42 infant/parent dyads. We have lost the following: 9 had baseline LENA scores above our cutoff, 1 moved out of state, 2 were unable to continue seeing study primary care doc, and 2 were terminated due to non-compliance with study procedures. We have 28 dyads remaining for our site.

Participants completed baseline Language ENvironment Analysis LENA assessments and have been receiving the TWMB intervention at their well-child checks. We are getting ready to start post-intervention LENA assessments. 

Study/Site PI: – Dr. Brenda Salley       Coordinator: Kristina Foster

NCT06479278

Phentermine's Impact on Treatment in Teens (PhiTT)

PhiTT is the network's first FDA/IND study with a Spring 2026 planned launch. It is a Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial of Phentermine for Adolescents with Obesity.

I have been on the protocol writing team, and we have been selected as one of 10 sites for this study. We have approval from NIH to run the study from Children's Mercy and use the PCRU with the stipulation that we enroll teens living in Kansas from primary care clinics (not weight management clinics).

Site PI: Dr. Helena Laroche              Co-Investigator: Dr. Bridgette Jones

Sub-Investigator: Dr. Kate Kyler     Network Liaison: Kristina Foster

Coordinators: Pete Muenks

SPeCTr News: 

We have 2 team members (Drs Ann Davis & Chelsea Kracht) who are on the meeting planning committee for our next network meeting in DC/Bethesda in April.

We just had our most recent SPeCTr Scientific Oversight Committee (SSOC) meeting last week. We had a great discussion about our plans for rural provider surveys, and about transitioning to a more community focused SSOC and how to engage communities of interest. We have all kinds of ideas and are trying to figure the best way forward.

We are preparing for our next Quarterly Program Call (QPC) with our NIH program office in March as well as our next RPPR submission, also at the end of March -- we will have a busy Spring.

Network News:  

Our next Network Meeting is scheduled for April 29-30 in DC/Bethesda.

Our NIH Program Officer shared an announcement about the biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE 2026) being held June 14-17. This conference is funded by NIGMS and is organized by the National Association of IDeA Principal Investigators (NAIPI).

Our NIH Program officer also shared the ECHO Symposium announcement. See below for more information and the link to register.

University of Kansas Medical Center has the Kansas Center for Rural Health which SPeCTr is happy to be part of. 

The Rural Connection is the newsletter for the center -- it is much more robust than our SPeCTr newsletter. Enjoy :-)

You can also sign up to receive their newsletter here.

Professional Development

Heartland DCOC is working on transferring all of the UAMS DCOC Professional Development materials into a new ECHO ISPCTN portal. Stand by for more information as it becomes available.

ECHO Discovery: monthly webinar series with educational presentations for the ECHO community by internal speakers. Both upcoming and past presentation information can be found here. 

Educational Resources on ECHO website.

SPeCTr Research Training page has many resources.

SPeCTr YouTube channel.

For questions or comments, contact Kristina Foster at:     kfoster6@kumc.edu or 913-485-4216 (cell)

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