Investigating the Efficacy of Mobile Health Monitoring and Self-care to Improve Obesity Outcomes in Hispanic Adolescence Populations
Baylor College of Medicine
Summary
Hispanic adolescents in the U.S. are disproportionately burdened by type 2 diabetes (T2D) compared to non-Hispanic white youth (0.079% vs. 0.017%) contributing to higher rates of T2D-related vascular complications, cardiovascular disease, and mortality, among this population. Disparities in T2D are driven in part by independent, modifiable risk factors including low levels of physical activity, sleep, and poor diet. Lifestyle interventions are the cornerstone for maintaining glucose control and managing T2D. However, few studies have developed and tested lifestyle interventions for Hispanic youth with T2D. Digital health interventions that promote healthy lifestyle behaviors like physical activity, sleep, and diet, have demonstrated effectiveness among adults. Studies that use health-based smartphone applications have demonstrated preliminary efficacy for improving health-related lifestyle behaviors as these digital tools leverage behavior change techniques (e.g. self-monitoring, goal-setting, feedback) that have proven effective. Use of digital technology allows for the continuous delivery of intervention content into the home environment extending the reach of clinical care while engaging youth in a format that is age-appropriate given that today's youth are digital frontrunners. Unfortunately, while the use of digital health interventions have increased, few studies have focused on adolescents with overweight and obesity who are at high risk for T2D. The purpose of this study is to 1) develop a mobile health platform for remote and continuous monitoring of activity, sleep, and nutrition and 2) conduct a pilot study (30 days) to evaluate the efficacy of a novel digital health platform in improving obesity-related health outcomes outcomes in Hispanic adolescents (12-18 years; N=30) population.
Description
To test the feasibility and acceptability of a health-based mobile phone application the research team will recruit a sample of Hispanic adolescents (12-18 years; N=30) with overweight and obesity. Once informed consent and youth assent have been collected, youth will be enrolled into the intervention. Investigators will leverage an existing digital monitoring platform consisting of a Bluetooth-enabled weight scale and the mobile health app developed through Apple iOS which provides advanced activity and sleep tracking features, visualizations and trends, and self-reporting functionality. This…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 12–18 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * self-identify as Hispanic or Latino * 12-18 years * BMI% in the 85th-95th range, * Owns their own iphone Exclusion Criteria: * Currently enrolled in a health program * Diagnosed with T2D * Present with a disease or condition that would prevent one from engaging in activity
Interventions
- BehavioralPATHS-UP Mobile Phone Application
Youth in the intervention will be given access to a health-based mobile phone application and a remote bluetooth scale. The app is focused on promoting health education and self-monitoring. For 30 days youth will be asked to engage with content focused on promoting healthy sleep, physical activity, and dietary habits every day. Youth will also be asked to self-monitor health behaviors using the app as it pulls in data on daily steps from the accelerometer embedded within the smartphone, information on weight from daily weigh-ins using the remote scale, sleep via a weekly survey within the app, and caloric intake using a daily food log that is powered through artificial intelligence within the app.
Location
- Children's Nutrition Research CenterHouston, Texas