Health Promotion + Behavior Change Exhibition 2020

As healthcare moves beyond medicine to include preventive approaches, there is increasing interest in the use of health communication campaigns and behavioral interventions to reduce the healthcare burden through effective health promotion and disease prevention. At the start of the January 2020, the 02.230TS Health Communication and Behavior Change students from SUTD were tasked by the Singapore Health Promotion Board to come up with ideas to tackle various health issues. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their physical exhibitions had to be migrated online, and instead, they are showcasing their ideas here in this virtual exhibition. These include fascinating ideas from the ALL-lympics, which uses Facebook and Instagram AR filters to encourage physical activity among youths, to Dr. Jiao (believe it or not), that incorporates computer vision into dating applications to scan (gasp!) pictures of genitalia for physical symptoms of STDs. These are health interventions developed by youths, for youths, and I hope you enjoy the exhibition from the comfort of your home. Feel free to contact the project groups if you are interested in furthering their ideas!

The All-lympics: AR Filters to Reduce Sedentary Time: According to a 2019 WHO study, three quarters of Singaporean adolescents do not get sufficient physical activity. By tapping on the success and influence of social media, the campaign, ALL-lympics, tackles this issue through a collection of Facebook and Instagram Augmented Reality (AR) Filters that is designed to engage the youth and invoke interest in sports and encourage greater participation in physical activities. This allows for seamless implementation as these filters would be intuitive for youth to learn and use. These social media AR filters will revolve about the theme of Olympic sporting games. Through the established connection of familiarity and popularity that people have with the Olympics, we hope to further encourage Singaporean youths to experience and garner interests for sports when playing these Olympic sports-themed AR filters. The incorporation of a game-like structure also allows for fun challenges to be introduced that both engage as well as challenge the user. With easy access for sports facility booking in-built within the filter, paired with the engaging game-like Olympic themed design, it allows subliminal messaging to be introduced, to change youths’ attitude and behavior toward exercise.

Koe Jia Yee, Wang Wei Liang, Marcus Koh (marcus_koh@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Brandom Lawrence, Thomas Ng

Hope in View: It is claimed that HIV infection is today a chronic disease rather than a moral failing. Even as the spread of the disease has been dwindling in recent years, the undesirable narratives around HIV have not. Life with HIV continues to be fraught with difficulty and disapproval; leading people to avoid medical treatment and testing for fear of humiliation. “HopeInView” is a campaign aimed at improving the narratives surrounding HIV by encouraging participants to pledge their support for those living with HIV on social media. Participants will also be given a custom enamel pin as a symbol of hope and solidarity. This campaign primarily hinges on the theory of normative social behaviour to moderate the influence of what participants believe about what is done by others in his/her social group. It does this by presenting itself on social media and at locations where the participant’s social group might frequent (like schools and libraries). The enamel pin helps the campaign be more visible, enabling a wider reach. By getting people to share these messages and don these pins, an atmosphere of acceptance and kindness might be more perceivable for those living with HIV – allowing them to live healthier lives.

Adam Idris Lim Wei, Mae White (mae.white3@gmail.com), Yen Kuan Wu, Zwe Wint Naing (Valentine), Muhammad Shahul

“Okay? Not Okay.” is a campaign for youths to show support for those fighting depression, encouraging help-seeking behaviour among depressed individuals. According to The Stage Model of Self-Stigma (SMSS), the public stigma that people suffering from depression are weak leads to internalization and self-stigmatization in depressed individuals. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) further explains why resultant negative attitudes account for low rates of help-seeking behaviour. To address this “treatment gap”, we formulated a 3-pronged approach aimed at invoking attitudinal and behavioural changes in the community. Firstly, the EAST framework is used to create positive attitudes towards depression in the #itsok2notbeok challenge. Individuals can show their support for depression through an easy and interactive way - Instagram Stories. This reduces public stigma via the bandwagon effect. Secondly, the main Instagram page shares experiences of individuals living with depression, and educates the public about the illness. Motivational posts increase control beliefs of depressed individuals (TPB). Sharers will also reduce self-stigmatization after opening up (SMSS). Lastly, viewers can participate in activities and moderated discussions on Instagram Live to interact with peers who overcame depression. Based on Allport’s intergroup contact theory, this direct contact with the stigmatised group further reduces negative public stigma.

Gan Hui Ting (huiting_gan@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Elliot Koh, Bhuvaneswari Sithanathan, Loh De Rong, Glenda Wee

Sweet Spot: Diabetes is a serious global health issue that is affecting Singapore as well. Sweet Spot targets diabetic patients, those at risk of diabetes and health-conscious Singaporeans looking for a low-sugar diet. Sweet Spot believes in a community effort in combating diabetes, and is a novel platform where healthier diets, lifestyles, and ideas are shared. Users can recommend low-sugar food products, recipes and diet ideas to each other. Sweet Spot is built around a unique recommender rating system that provides score users based on the satisfaction of the recipients of their recommendations and the healthiness of food products recommended. With a rich database of food products and their nutritional information, the app assigns each product a unique “goodness” score based on the levels of sodium, fat, protein, calories etc. and most importantly sugar. The app is designed in a way to recognize users who provide good recommendations. Lastly, the app features a unique community diet tracking feature which allows users to track and share their sugar intake so that family and friends can monitor and encourage each other in their journey.

Darrell Chia (darrell_chia@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Yong Khai Sheen, Hadi Bin Alwi, Cai He Ang, Tan Yi Leng

Together, We Can Reach The Moon: To encourage students to pick the stairs over escalator during their journey at train stations, our group seeks to revamp the user experience of stairs taking. Through gamification, we hope that students will find it more as a fun and engaging activity, rather than a chore. Taking the public transport is a routine procedure for the majority, passengers have low ability to think when they are rushing and have little motivation to think about exercise, so targeting System 1 thinking and peripheral route processing will be more effective. Specifically, we turned to the Easy, Attractive, Social and Time framework as a reference for the nudges needed to drive students towards picking stairs, over the escalator. Why is our proposed solution effective? Our solution integrates physical activity into a student’s otherwise sedentary train journey, giving them the excitement from the accumulation of points and competition with other schools. This feeds into the students’ need to feel challenged and need to display competency and superiority.

Henry Lim Yu De (henry_lim@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Toh Sing Ru, Jiang Chenxi, Chen Yueyi, Ong Jia En

Dr. Jiao: Once and done.

But it’s never just, once and done. Hookups are spontaneous, and every hookup carries a risk of contracting STDs, because there’s never enough time to check. At best, STD tests takes one week to process, and that’s way too long for “in the moment”. Then it could be once and done, for real.

Dr.Jiao cuts that to one second. Embedded within online dating apps, Dr.Jiao is a computer vision algorithm that scans dick pics/images of genitalia for common physical symptoms of STDs. With one tap, users will know if their partner behind the screen might have an STD. With one tap, a report can be sent to their partner to know their risk of STDs and seek professional help. With one tap, users are now safer.

Once and done.

Kevin Yee Yew Wai (kevin_yee@alumni.sutd.edu.sg), Chong Yu Kai, Soh Jun Xian, Liong Si Yun Tricia, James Kusuma Dewa Halim, Ng Jen Yang

Tapping on Trends: By tapping into the idea of current trends and social media such as TikTok, we believe the youths aged between 16 - 24 will move around while completing the physical challenges that are created for them and thus, reducing their sedentary lifestyle. We believe the youths will subconsciously be more active as they are focused on competing and jumping on the bandwagon for the likes. It becomes a popularity competition, encouraging them to participate in these challenges. The physical challenges can vary from foot-shakes to physical challenges. By using hashtags to tag the trend, the success of the campaign can be measured by the number of times the hashtag is used throughout the various social media platforms. Through the protocol outlined in our report, we believe that this programme could be applied to a variety of situations or future trends over the years and would still be successful in attracting the target group.

Balan Vidya Abinaya (abinaya_vidya@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Keerthana Janmugam, Cheong Rui Zhi Jeremy, Ng Kah Jun Jeremy, Joey Riche L Tan

The New Healthy365 App: Currently, there is a high percentage of young adults, age between 17 to 24 that are leading a sedentary lifestyle due to prolonged sitting and too little movement in their daily lives. HPB is aware of the problems of sedentary lifestyle and has created the Healthy365 app to tackle this issue. However, it might not be that effective in targeting youths as only 20-25% of tertiary and post-tertiary have downloaded the app and less than half of them are active users. One reason could be due to the complicated and unintuitive UI of the app which discourages young adults from using. Our proposed solution is to reinvent the UI of the Healthy365 app, with additional features to it. One of them is the active exercise planner which will aid app users in actively planning out their exercise routines weekly. It includes features such as rankings, group incentives and stretched goals with groups. Additionally, we designed a dynamic app icon that reflects each users’ level physical activity. Hence, we hope our proposed solution will be able to encourage young adults into using the healthy365 app more, and consequently, be more active.

Fion Yao, Yeoh Jia Er, Lim Jia Qi (jiaqi_lim@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Kuah Wee Ping, Gabriel Phang

MeCo: Medication non-adherence is an issue within the healthcare sector, especially among the elderly. This is often due to forgetfulness and the complexity involved when taking their medication. This pill dispenser automatically sorts and dispenses pills into a capsule-shaped container, and seniors only need to retrieve it to take their medication. When it is time for medication, a pre-recorded video of the grandchildren reminding the elderly to take their medication is casted on the device of the senior’s choice (e.g. television, phone). As seniors are likely to dote on their grandchildren, they are motivated to maintain their health by following their regimen. Additionally, on the capsule-shaped container, there is a lucky number to help the elderly associate medication taking when they check the 4D/TOTO results at 6.30 p.m. The proposed solution is backed by the theory of planned behaviour which theorizes that medication adherence could potentially improve when the elderly are motivated to consume their medication and when the process is made easy. With better medication adherence, it can potentially improve individual health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs in the long run.

Bai Jialong, Chay Wai Peng Benjamin, Faiz Azhar Hazman (faiz_azhar@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Loy Yong Yi Wendy, Nicholas Lok Jia Wen

#keepcalmand: In this project, we are aiming to change youth’s attitude towards the uptake of smoking by correcting the false perception that smoking helps relieve stress. We choose to target youth because from the statistics of the HPB, about 80% of smokers hooked before they turn 21. One of the reasons is that youth is susceptible to the negative influence from the environment around them leading to lack of knowledge and misconception of smoking. At the same time, due to the long-term severe effects of smoking such as fatal diseases and depression, we are motivated to try our best to prevent people from smoking. We decided to target one of the main misconceptions of smoking – some people think that smoking helps them to relieve stress. We are introducing a hashtag campaign #keepcalmand as our approach to proliferate the correct information to as many youths as possible. Through the campaign, we encourage the public to share their healthy and creative ways of coping with stress so that participants could follow the trend to learn correct information and healthy methodology to relieve stress. The details of the campaign could be found inside our poster.

Leong Kei Sheng (keisheng_leong@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Chris Sim Seng Wee, Li Yueqin, Ge Zichang, Yuri Kim

Bobagram is a phone application that aims to prevent diabetes by improving the behaviour of Bubble Tea (BBT) consumption among Singaporean youths (aged 18-25) through fun means. We hypothesise that there is resistance among BBT lovers when approached with the topic of how unhealthy BBT is. Therefore, we built our intervention based on the Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model. To further improve its effectiveness, Social Cognitive Theory is applied. Its main features are: (1) The Adventures of Bobasaur (Embark on a journey with Bobasaur, the story’s hero, whose goal is to become healthier and stronger whilst still enjoying its favourite BBT. Witness Bobasaur achieve its dreams and win the Pokemon championship!), (2) Bobafeed (Enter Bobafeed where you can share your positive experiences in trying low-sugar BBT, which will help to encourage others to go healthy as well), (3) Bobasaur Gives Back! (Bobagram features a reward system where tokens are gained through purchasing 25% or less sugar BBT which can be exchanged for Bobasaur collectibles or rebates), and (4) Bobasaur Talks (Users can relay their challenges faced in their path to reduce their BBT sugar level to Bobasaur. On “Bobasaur Talks”, Bobasaur will do its best to provide advice and encouragement during these sessions!)

Goh Yan Xian (yanxian_goh@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Han Jing Bertha, Nigel Chan, Kenneth Soon, Joshua Tan Junqing

Makan Time Kaypoh Time is a campaign that aims to decrease the perception among university students that mental health is a taboo subject, and to encourage them to speak about their mental well-being more frequently over a period of two months. This is because recent studies have shown an increasing number of people experiencing mental disorders and young adults (aged between 18 to 34) are the majority. Moreover, with the existing stigma against mental illness, those in need feel discouraged to seek the necessary advice from a therapist. Our campaign aims to achieve the aforementioned objectives by strategically introducing conversation prompts and self-efficacy messages via brochures placed on university canteen tables. These brochures serve as a nudge for starting conversations about mental well-being. To encourage the behaviour change, the campaign made it “Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely” to start mental health conversations. The proposed intervention also leveraged on the Social Cognitive Theory to increase students’ self-efficacy beliefs via vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion. The campaign’s effectiveness lies on the strategy of informalising the conversations and targeting mealtime specifically. Additionally, the campaign features are supported by relevant theories to enhance the effectiveness.

Ashlyn Goh Er Xuan (ashlyn_goh@mymail.sutd.edu.sg), Siti Nurbaya, Goh Yi Lin Tiffany, Tay Tzu Shieh, Krishna Penukonda