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other·public health, cardiology, nutrition, epidemiology, clinical trial·PMC10614295

Surviving & Thriving ; a healthy lifestyle app for new US firefighters: usability and pilot study protocol

Frontiers in Endocrinology · 12 authors, 13 centres

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This paper is a study protocol for developing and testing a healthy lifestyle mobile app for new US firefighters. The protocol outlines the plan for usability testing and a pilot study to assess the feasibility and potential of this digital intervention to improve health behaviors.

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This study protocol describes the planned development, usability testing, and pilot study of a digital healthy lifestyle (HLS) app tailored for new US firefighters. The app targets four key domains: nutrition, sleep, physical activity, and resilience. The protocol includes pre-beta testing, focus groups with firefighters for feedback, and a subsequent pilot study phase to observe changes in health behaviors. The authors highlight the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors among firefighters and the potential of healthy lifestyle interventions to mitigate these risks. The protocol acknowledges several limitations, including potential response bias, performance bias, the short pilot duration of 3 to 6 months, and limited app personalization. The ultimate goal is to assess the app's feasibility before conducting a larger, multi-center randomized clinical trial to evaluate its effect on chronic disease risk factors.

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public health

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10614295

Surviving & Thriving ; a healthy lifestyle app for new US firefighters: usability and pilot study protocol

Frontiers in Endocrinology

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ABSTRACT

Abstract In the United States (US), new firefighters’ fitness and health behaviors deteriorate rapidly after fire academy graduation. Over the long-term, this increases their risks for chronic diseases. This study protocol describes the proposed usability testing and pilot study of a newly designed and developed healthy lifestyle smartphone app, “Surviving & Thriving”, tailored towards young US firefighters. “Surviving & Thriving” will provide interactive educational content on four lifestyle factors; nutrition, sleep, physical activity, and resilience, and include a personalized journey, habit tracker, and elements of gamification to promote engagement and long-term healthy behavior change. The first phase of the app development entails alpha testing by the research team and pre-beta testing by a fire service expert panel which will help refine the app into a pre-consumer version. Upon completion of the full app prototype, beta ‘usability’ testing will be conducted among new fire academy graduates from two New England fire academies to collect qualitative and quantitative feedback via focus groups and satisfaction surveys, respectively. A last phase of piloting the app will evaluate the app’s efficacy at maintaining/improving healthy lifestyle behaviors, mental health metrics, and physical fitness metrics. We will also evaluate whether firefighters’ perceived “health cultures” scores (ratings of each fire station’s/fire department’s environments as to encouraging/discouraging healthy behaviors) modify the changes in health metrics after utilizing the app for three to six months. This novel user-friendly app seeks to help new firefighters maintain/improve their health and fitness more effectively, reducing their risk of lifestyle-related chronic disease. Firefighters who can establish healthy habits early in their careers are more likely to sustain them throughout their lives. Keywords: lifestyle, digital health interventions, health promotion, field-testing, firefighting, workplace interventions, workplace well-being

CITATION EXPORT

Maria Soledad Hershey, Eleni Bouziani, Xin Yu (Maggie) Chen et al.. Surviving & Thriving; a healthy lifestyle app for new US firefighters: usability and pilot study protocol. Frontiers in Endocrinology. (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2023.1250041

AUTHORS

12 · 13 CENTRES

Maria Soledad Hershey, Eleni Bouziani, Xin Yu (Maggie) Chen, Irene Lidoriki, Kishor Hadkhale, Ya-Chin Huang, Theodoros Filippou, José Francisco López-Gil, Anne Katherine Gribble, Fan-Yun Lan, Mercedes Sotos-Prieto, Stefanos N Kales

1 Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
2 Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
3 Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, William James Hall, Cambridge, MA, United States
4 Department of Occupational Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, United States
5 Department of Preventive Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
6 Department of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
7 Covid-19 Clinic, Limassol General Hospital, Limassol, Cyprus
8 One Health Research Group, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito, Ecuador
9 Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW Health, Warrawong, NSW, Australia
10 Institute of Health and Welfare Policy, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
11 Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and IdiPaz (Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Hospital Universitario La Paz), Madrid, Spain
12 Center for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology and Public Health Network (CIBERESP) [Consorcio Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red (CIBER) of Epidemiology and Public Health], Madrid, Spain
13 Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies (IMDEA)-Food Institute, The Campus of International Excellence (CEI), The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), The Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Madrid, Spain