Coming out of the first year of my MPH program, I am amazed at the growth I have made in my knowledge and understanding of critical public health issues. I came into this program with a very broad interest in sexual and reproductive health (SRH), and over the course of nine months I have made strides in defining what a future in this field may look like for myself. I have had the opportunity to take coursework that I was truly passionate about alongside classes that brought my capabilities as a public health professional to the next level. In this last semester, I discovered a particular passion for design thinking and user experience and applying those skills towards digital health interventions. I kept my fingers crossed that a practicum opportunity would come along that checked all of the boxes: SRH-related, elements of design thinking and graphic design, and remote-friendly. When Dr. Lauren Hill posted her summer practicum opportunity for a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) shared decision-making study, I was thrilled to interview and then eventually accept an offer. I have been in this role for about three weeks now, and I have learned a lot about HIV, PrEP usage, user experience, and design thinking in a public health space.
The main goal of this project is to modify and develop an online shared decision-making tool for cisgender women in North Carolina who are interested in taking PrEP, a daily oral medication that prevents people from getting HIV from sex or injection drug use. A key responsibility of mine is conducting in-depth user testing interviews with sexually transmitted infections (STI) clinic patients to inform the Inspiration and Ideation phases of the human-centered design thinking process. These interviews will help myself and the team to rapidly iterate the digital health prototype to make it more feasible and user friendly. During this process I will modify or develop new content for the prototype decision aid using Semblie, an online platform developed by RTI International used to build, deliver, and track digital health interventions. These initial few weeks working on this project have included learning more about the formative study that informed the development of this tool, editing the decision aid to make it more visually appealing, modifying the user testing guide, and creating a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the user testing process. My final deliverables will have three parts: 1) the final revised shared decision-making tool, 2) a user testing results report/memo for Dr. Hill and her team, and 3) a feedback memo for the Semblie team at RTI.
I look forward to learning and growing as a public health professional during this summer practicum. My professional goals for this experience include developing and utilizing my design thinking skills, gaining experience using public health technology that is new to me, and expanding my professional network within the public health space. Working alongside Dr. Hill and Laura Wagner from RTI will help me check some of these boxes as I navigate this new territory. This position is perfect for my professional goals, and I cannot wait to start user testing this June and hit the ground running on the iterative design thinking process. I look forward to sharing more with you all at the beginning of August!
P.S. Please enjoy this photo of my “coworker”, Red. How I get anything done when he is this cute is beyond me!
-Chloe