Amy Bodde in red shirt smiling. Brian Helsel in black shirt with gray pullover smiling.

Integrating Special Populations Trailblazer Award: Amy Bodde, Ph.D. and Brian Helsel, Ph.D.

By Frontiers , Clinical and Translational Science Institute

Oct 02, 2025

Project Title: Time to THRIVE: Translating Healthy lifestyle Research to those with Intellectual disabilities through Virtual Engagement

Amy Bodde, Ph.D., MPH, and Brian Helsel, Ph.D., are both passionate about supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and promoting healthy lifestyles in that community. Bodde, who has personal connections to IDD and an interest in physical activity, exercise, and nutrition, and Helsel, who developed his interest after volunteering with a non-profit that helps promote exercise in individuals with IDD, have teamed up for their new Integrating Special Populations (ISP) Pilot Award.

“Our research interests aligned closely with the goals of the ISP Pilot Program, and that sparked an idea for the project,” said Helsel.

What is the project?

Bodde said, “Our overall goal is to convert some of the health education programs we’ve developed over the last 10 years into a fun and useable app for people with IDD.”

By furthering the reach of research findings across communities, adults with IDD can engage with and benefit from health education and physical activity programs that have been developed through research. This project was developed in response to community input and feedback from previous projects that Bodde and Helsel have worked on.

"Participants in previous studies have had a great time in lifestyle studies where they’ve gotten to do exercise or weight loss classes,” she said. “They like the social connections and lifestyle content, and they want to keep it going after the study ends. We want to extend the impact of that work.”

By incorporating that feedback from the community, they have developed a study that will meet community needs.

“This is a project that was driven by meetings with our Community Advisory Board and our study coordinators who recognized this need. It’s their vision; we’re just leading the project,” Helsel said.

Bodde and Helsel will be utilizing the Pathverse platform, a no-code research management toolkit, to build a mobile application. Users with IDD will be able to engage with this app to receive information and materials about healthy living, including information on physical activity, diet and nutrition, weight loss, sleep, social connectedness, and stress management. These materials and recommendations are evidence-based and have been developed by Lauren Ptomey, Ph.D., Bodde, Helsel, and other study team members at the University of Kansas Medical Center. In an approach known as co-design, Bodde and Helsel are developing the app alongside people with IDD who will consult with the study team as they develop the app at every stage of development, including through focus groups and beta testing.

Bodde and Helsel are hopeful that their ISP project will lead to a larger grant submission and, more importantly, to a robust app that can be widely used in the future with various populations of people with IDD. This proof-of-concept study is laying the groundwork for a new way to disseminate research findings and promote evidence-based lifestyle changes in IDD.

“I think that’s going to be really fun and fruitful work,” said Bodde.