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PRISTA App

Research Line: Healthy Start / Seed Call: i4PH Oktober 2024

Numerous studies highlight the widespread prevalence of suboptimal dietary patterns during pregnancy, the postpartum period, and early childhood. These unhealthy dietary habits increase the risk of conditions such as gestational diabetes, low birth weight, postpartum depression, childhood allergies, and long-term health issues like obesity and cardiometabolic disorders. Furthermore, dietary habits established early in life tend to persist into adulthood, influencing long-term health outcomes.

The perinatal period, encompassing pregnancy and the year postpartum, represents a critical window for behavior change, offering an opportunity to foster healthier dietary habits. Mobile health (mHealth) applications present a promising solution to deliver scalable, personalized nutritional guidance during this period, reducing the burden on healthcare professionals and supporting better health outcomes for mothers and children.

Objectives and Route to Impact

Despite the growing use of mHealth, there is still a significant gap in the development of personalized support tools, with limited evaluation of existing apps. This underscores the urgent need for innovation in this area. Building on the work done in the Regio Deal Foodvalley “Early Life” project, which developed a user-centered blueprint for the PRISTA app focusing on maternal nutrition, our project aims to further refine, customize, implement, and evaluate the PRISTA app. This initiative seeks to enhance maternal and child nutrition during early life in the Netherlands.

Methods and Devliverables

Inclusion of a Child Feeding Module in the App. Based on user feedback, the PRISTA app will integrate child nutrition alongside maternal nutrition, addressing the lack of scientifically validated child nutrition apps.

Development and Linkage of the PRISTA App with the FLOW! Device. The FLOW! device, which measures breast milk volume, will be linked to the PRISTA app to support mothers during the early weeks of breastfeeding.

Enhancement of PRISTA App’s Usability for Women with Low Socio-Economic Position. The app will be optimized for women from low socio-economic backgrounds, addressing barriers to healthy eating such as motivation, knowledge, and resources.

Implementation of the PRISTA App in Regional Healthcare Systems. The app will be integrated into regional healthcare settings, such as Centering Pregnancy and Centering Parents, to support expecting mothers.

Evaluation of the PRISTA App’s Cost-Effectiveness and Dietary Changes. The app’s effectiveness in promoting dietary changes and its cost-effectiveness will be evaluated using dietary recalls and surveys. A cost-effectiveness analysis will measure the app’s benefits, such as improved diet quality and breastfeeding duration.

Learning from Past Experiences in App Development for Early-Life Nutrition. An expert panel will create a best-practice guideline based on global efforts to develop mHealth tools for early-life nutrition. This will help standardize and improve future research and development in this area.

The findings from the explorative studies will be compiled, insights will be synthesized, and a larger grant proposal will be drafted based on the study results.

Contribution to Cross-EWUU Collaboration

This project brings together a multidisciplinary team from the EWUU alliance, leveraging expertise across six work packages. Partners contribute knowledge in tool development (TU/e), dietary assessment and co-creation (WUR), early life nutrition (WUR, UU), and people-centered innovation (UMCU). By integrating these diverse disciplines, the project aims to develop and implement the PRISTA app within the Dutch healthcare system, improving maternal and child nutrition during early life.

Team

Contact

Principle Investigator: Dr. Ir. E.M. Brouwer-Brolsma

Elske.brouwer-brolsma@wur.nl