Communicating Timely Measures of Type-2 Diabetes

The project began when the Public Health Agency of Canada approached our program with a problem: how to communicate time sensitive measures to different communities and user groups. The Covid-19 outbreak brought attention to this issue and highlighted the significance of precautionary measures. Our aim was to explore timely means of communications to different communities and user groups, and how to build trust for adoption of life saving practices.

Through our secondary research we learned for individuals to adopt prompt health measures, they need to be made aware of what they are at risk of and how to best practice recommendations to protect themselves. The first step was to understand an individual’s baseline knowledge of communicable and non-communicable diseases and assess trusted channels health information. We decided to narrow our focus to the rise of type-2 diabetes in Canada, focusing on general awareness and baseline prevention knowledge.

We compiled questions about access to healthcare advice, channels of information and attitudes towards health behaviour. We adopted a mixed-methods approach that involved a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews. The survey was designed to gather health behaviour data, status of communication with healthcare providers and desired outcomes of healthcare experiences. The interviews aimed to gather qualitative insights on patients’ experiences and perspectives; what influences their trust with doctors, health advice considered and their healthy lifestyle practices. We had 67 validated survey respondents, 7 semi-structured interview participants and consulted 5 subject matter experts.

We uncovered a significant communication gap within the instances of adults without family doctors, which places an onus on individuals to explore health related information through their familiar channels. In our survey; Google, family and friends were just as common for clarifying new medical terminology as asking healthcare professionals. We found participants wanted a family doctor to experience consistency and build trust for continuous care. The healthcare provider-patient relationship also influences the social support network on best practices for informal caregivers, having a ripple effect affecting holistic coaching and social pressure to engage in at-risk behaviours.

Based on user testing, we found that people responded well to reminders for healthcare check-ups and age-related health milestones. To address this touchpoint need, we have developed a digital solution with physical interactions that includes a pilot program kiosk available to pharmacies for health risk assessments. The kiosk prompts users to take a two-minute survey to assess their potential risk of developing type-2 diabetes through the CanRisk application. This content can also be available through an interactive email format, marketed towards employers and services for employee engagement. The main objective is to build trust within a communication channel that can be scalable for other lifestyle and age related health risks, as well as ad-hoc health advisories such as heat waves, seasonal flus and other transmissible diseases.