Family-Based Just-In-Time Adaptive Intervention App for Cancer Prevention
Please note: recruitment for the current study cycle has now closed. If you are interested in joining this study for the next round, please reach out to digitalhealthstudies@uvic.ca and we'll add you to the waitlist!
Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada. It is estimated that 1 in 2 Canadians (45% of men and 43% of women) are expected to develop cancer during their lifetime. Although many cancers affect older adults, the antecedents begin in early life, and half are preventable through lifestyle changes, making primary prevention efforts necessary from childhood.
Recent evidence suggests that promoting physical activity for the entire family is an effective strategy to improve physical activity in children. Specifically, a focus on promoting parental support (encouragement, activities as a family, and logistics) of child physical activity in the family system is considered essential to assist in child physical activity. Therefore, family-focused physical activity intervention targeting the parent to support child physical activity is critical to cancer prevention. It is crucial that we offer physical activity promotion programs that are scalable to maximize public health impact. Unfortunately, in-person family-focused childhood physical activity programs have limited reach and are resource-intensive. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop innovative solutions to improve the scalability of family-focused cancer prevention interventions to meet the needs of modern-day Canadian families.
The purpose of this study is therefore to co-create a 10-week smartphone family-based cancer prevention just-in-time adaptive intervention app focused on helping parents to support child physical activity.
You may be eligible if:
- You are a parent (18+ years old) of children (between the age of 8-12 years old) who are not meeting the physical activity guidelines across Canada (60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, assessed via parent proxy self-report).
- You, the parent, must be a primary caregiver of the child and the child must be living with the parent more than 50% of the time throughout the week.