A Local Community-Based Social Network for Mental Health and Well-being (Quokka): Exploratory Feasibility Study

Area of Science:

• Digital health interventions
• Behavioral science
• Community-based health promotion

Background:

• Mental health is a global concern, especially for college students.
• Developing healthy habits and sustaining behavior change is challenging.
• Digital platforms offer novel approaches to well-being promotion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility of Quokka, a web platform for well-being activities on university campuses.
• To evaluate the platform's potential in promoting local, social, and novel healthy habit activities.
• To explore participation trends and user motivation in a campus-wide well-being challenge.

Main Methods:

• A 6-to-8-week feasibility study involving 277 participants across 4 university campuses.
• Weekly well-being themes and surveys to assess motivation, participation, and activity type.
• Testing hypotheses on preferences for local, social, and new activities.

Main Results:

• A strong preference for local over remote activities was observed across all challenge themes.
• Users significantly preferred group activities over individual ones (P<.001).
• Insufficient data existed to determine a significant preference for new versus familiar activities for most themes.

Conclusions:

• Local, community-based interventions like Quokka can effectively support positive behavior change.
• The findings have implications for designing location-based digital communities for well-being.
• Digital platforms can facilitate engagement in healthy habits within university settings.