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

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

doi:10.3389/fendo.2023.1250041

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

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2023 Oct 5:14:1250041. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2023.1250041. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Maria Soledad Hershey¹, Eleni Bouziani^{1

2}, Xin Yu Maggie Chen^{3

4}, Irene Lidoriki⁴, Kishor Hadkhale^{1

4}, Ya-Chin Huang^{4

5

6}, Theodoros Filippou⁷, José Francisco López-Gil^{1

8}, Anne Katherine Gribble^{4

9}, Fan-Yun Lan^{1

10}, Mercedes Sotos-Prieto^{1

11

12

13}, Stefanos N Kales^{1

4}

Affiliations

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.

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: digital health interventions; field-testing; firefighting; health promotion; lifestyle; workplace interventions; workplace well-being.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Firefighters* / psychology
Health Behavior
Healthy Lifestyle
Humans
Mobile Applications*
Pilot Projects
United States

Grants and funding

T42 OH008416/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States