OurChild: A Health IT Solution to Reduce Minority Health Disparities

Chinese American immigrant families are a fast-growing immigrant group with unmet early childhood mental health needs. The team proposes to design, build, and implement OurChild, an integrated mHealth/EHR solution to increase access to early childhood mental health knowledge and mental health services and resources for Chinese American children ages 2-6 years old and their parents in the Sunset Park Brooklyn.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Mental Health
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: OurChild mHealth Digital Platform

Detailed Description

The goal of this study is to reduce health disparities by designing a digital solution (OurChild) that facilitates connection and bidirectional exchange of information across the cultural, contextual, language, and setting differences that are key barriers to early childhood mental health knowledge and care access for the Chinese American community in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The first study aim is to iteratively design, build, and test OurChild. To do this, the team will 1) collaborate with family, clinical, and community stakeholders to conduct an early childhood mental health context/needs analysis and participatory design and discovery activities; 2) build a digital library of early childhood mental health resources accessible from OurChild; and 3) pilot and assess the usability and acceptability of a beta version of OurChild in a mixed-methods, cross-sectional cohort of 12 Chinese American parents and their 2- to 6-year-old children (N=24) who receive care at the Sunset Park 7th Avenue Family Health Center; and 5) optimize the design, features, and performance to create OurChild 1.0. The second study aim is to evaluate the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of OurChild 1.0 through an implementation cohort study with 120 parent/child dyads (N=240). A mixed-methods approach using metadata collected with the OurChild app, parent-reported data from the app, EHR data, and post-implementation key informant interviews with providers and other stakeholders to determine whether use of OurChild increases referrals of young children for a mental health consultation or evaluation (Primary Aim) will be used. The secondary aims include examining whether use of OurChild increases 1) parent self-efficacy; 2) parent-provider engagement; and 3) linkage with community early childhood resources.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 254
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Simona Kwon, DrPH; Phone Number: 646-847-3479; Email: simona.kwon@nyulangone.org
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Yi-Ling Tan, MPH; Phone Number: 646-501-3489; Email: yi-ling.tan@nyulangone.org

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10016
      • Recruiting
      • NYU Langone Health
      • Contact: Simona Kwon, DrPH; Phone Number: 646-501-3479; Email: simona.kwon@nyulangone.org
      • Principal Investigator: Simona Kwon, DrPh

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 2 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Child must be 24 to 72 months old
• Child must have been receiving pediatric primary care at the 7th Ave FHC for at least 6 months
• Child must be identified as Chinese and/or preferred language is Chinese in EHR
• Parents must be at least 18 years old
• Parents must be the child's parent/legal guardian
• Parents must be able and willing to provide informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

• Siblings and parents of previously enrolled children
• Parents who do not have access to an iOS or Android smartphone

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: OurChild	Other: OurChild mHealth Digital Platform; The intervention being created and tested in this study is OurChild an integrated mHealth/EHR app, initially designed for the Chinese American community in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All participants will be assigned to either beta versions undergoing development, or to version 1.0.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Number of Referrals	Change in number of referrals to NYU Langone Child Psychiatry or Developmental Pediatrics	Month 18, Month 45

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Score on Parental Self-Efficacy Scale	The General Self-Efficacy Scale is a 10-item psychometric scale that is designed to assess optimistic self-beliefs to cope with a variety of difficult demands in life.	Month 25, Month 45
Change in Amount of parent-provider engagement	Engagement defined as at least one interaction or messaging exchange between parent and provider through OurChild messaging portal	Month 18, Month 45
Change in accessing resources on App	Access to clinical and community early childhood and family services and resources; access defined as click through on resources library tab in OurChild app	Month 25, Month 45
Score on Betz Physician Confidence Scale	The Betz Scale is a collection of 11 statements describing the provider's perceived barriers to the identification and management of child mental health issues. Responses to each statement consist of Strongly Agree (0), Agree, Uncertain, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree (5). The total range of score is 0-55, with a higher score indicating higher physician confidence in assessing and treating mental health disorders.	Month 48

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: NYU Langone Health
• Collaborators: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Simona Kwon, DrPH, NYU Langone Health

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 25, 2023
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 30, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 30, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 17, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 17, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): December 21, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 6, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 4, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Health Information Technology
• Other Study ID Numbers: 20-01468

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Individual participant data that underlie the results reported in this article, after deidentification (text, tables, figures, and appendices) will be shared upon reasonable request.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Beginning 9 months and ending 36 months following article publication or as required by a condition of awards and agreements supporting the research.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: The investigator who proposed to use the data will have access to the data upon reasonable request. Requests should be directed to helen.egger@nyulangone.org. To gain access, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No