Making of Mobile SunSmart: Co-designing a Just-in-Time Sun Safety Intervention for Children and Families (Preprint)

BACKGROUND In this study, we describe a participatory, co-design process to develop a technology-based pilot intervention (Mobile SunSmart) for sun safety for children and their families. Our methodology embraces and leverages the expert knowledge children and their families have about their sun safety practices to directly influence the design of our JITAI-intervention. OBJECTIVE The objective of this paper is to describe our research procedures and summarize primary findings to be used for the development of our JITAI prototype. METHODS We conducted iterative co-design workshops involving design expert KidsTeam UW children (N=11) and subject expert children and their families from local communities in Southern California (N=48). Based on the qualitative data from co-design discussions and artifacts, relevant themes and distinct concepts were extracted and coded by the investigators. RESULTS Three overarching themes emerged: 1) preference for non-linear educational format with less structure for sun safety-related education, 2) situations are not always ideal or convenient for prioritizing sun safety, 3) challenges, barriers and ambiguity relating to sun safety to protect oneself and one’s family. The discussions also highlighted that not all technological artifacts would be equally suitable for everyone or across all contexts. Based on the design ideas and feedback provided by our participants, three modules are under development: personalized and interactive data intake module, narrative-education module, person-level and real-time tailored JITAI and assessment modules. CONCLUSIONS Mobile SunSmart is one of the first projects that maximally engage children co-designers and families to build a technology to improve sun safety with iterative and intentional design principles. Our scalable approach to design a mobile JITAI to improve sun safety will lay the foundation for future public health investigators for similar endeavor.