CAREER: Healthy Families: Technology to Support the Health and Wellness of Young Children

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This project focuses on the design, development, and evaluation of the effectiveness of computing interventions to assist parents in ensuring the healthy development of their child. As young children undergo rapid development and learn skills that will influence their entire lives, regular visits to a pediatrician and detailed record-keeping can ensure that children are progressing and can identify early warning signs of developmental delay or disability. The PI will use a comprehensive human-centered approach to explore and understand the tensions and opportunities for technology to support the health of young children while involving parents and professionals across diverse and underserved populations. The PI will seek to create feasible and effective technologies that motivate and encourage record-keeping by parents. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods will be employed to validate technology designs using a long-term study lasting 18 months in collaboration with Seattle Children's Health and Seattle King-County Public Health. Research outcomes will include: Discovery of design requirements for technologies to support the health of young children, especially for families from diverse and underserved populations; A suite of three new technologies based on the design requirements that leverage mobile and social computing technologies for assisting parents of young children with tracking their child's health information and learning about children's health; Validation of computing technology as a viable means of supporting parent record-keeping, of increasing parent knowledge and confidence in their child's developmental progress, and improving parent-pediatrician communication. Broader Impacts: This research involves conducting formative studies that further our knowledge of how health technology can be designed for underserved populations so as to minimize anxiety and support the doctor-patient relationship. Thus, the project will address a major public health goal of more closely tracking the health and development of young children, especially those from lower income backgrounds and those with developmental delay. The findings will have implications for domains beyond early childhood development. Project outcomes will expand our knowledge about how mobile and social computing applications can be developed and adapted based on the financial and time constraints of the users. Finally, this work will help refine techniques for evaluating technology applications designed for behavior change and long term outcomes, which in turn will advance the field of Human-Computer Interaction in general.