Parent Website Engagement and Health Equity Implications in a Child Care-Based Wellness Intervention

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Digital Health Interventions
• Health Equity

Background:

• Child care settings offer opportunities to promote child and parent wellness.
• Web-based interventions can deliver wellness content to parents, but engagement may vary.
• Understanding demographic disparities in parent engagement is crucial for equitable intervention design.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate demographic differences in parent website engagement within a child care-based wellness intervention.
• To identify potential disparities in access to online wellness resources based on parent demographics.

Main Methods:

• A cluster randomized controlled trial included the web-based intervention arm.
• Website engagement metrics (page views, time on page, activity completion) were collected.
• ANOVA was used to assess cross-sectional differences in engagement by parent demographics.

Main Results:

• Child care centers with a higher proportion of non-Hispanic White parents with college degrees had significantly more webpage views and intervention activity completions.
• Centers with a higher proportion of parents identifying as other than non-Hispanic White and with less than a bachelor's degree showed lower engagement.

Conclusions:

• Demographic differences in parent website engagement highlight disparities in accessing wellness information.
• These disparities may contribute to health inequities.
• Future research should focus on eliminating demographic disparities in parent engagement with web-based interventions.