Developing Message Strategies to Engage Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups in Digital Oral Self-Care Interventions: Participatory Co-Design Approach

Background: The prevention of oral health diseases is a key public health issue and a major challenge for racial and ethnic minority groups, who often face barriers in accessing dental care. Daily toothbrushing is an important self-care behavior necessary for sustaining good oral health, yet engagement in regular brushing remains a challenge. Identifying strategies to promote engagement in regular oral self-care behaviors among populations at risk of poor oral health is critical. Objective: The formative research described here focused on creating messages for a digital oral self-care intervention targeting a racially and ethnically diverse population. Theoretically grounded strategies (reciprocity, reciprocity-by-proxy, and curiosity) were used to promote engagement in 3 aspects: oral self-care behaviors, an oral care smartphone app, and digital messages. A web-based participatory co-design approach was used to develop messages that are resource efficient, appealing, and novel; this approach involved dental experts, individuals from the general population, and individuals from the target population-dental patients from predominantly low-income racial and ethnic minority groups. Given that many individuals from racially and ethnically diverse populations face anonymity and confidentiality concerns when participating in research, we used an approach to message development that aimed to mitigate these concerns. Methods: Messages were initially developed with feedback from dental experts and Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. Dental patients were then recruited for 2 facilitator-mediated group webinar sessions held over Zoom (Zoom Video Communications; session 1: n=13; session 2: n=7), in which they provided both quantitative ratings and qualitative feedback on the messages. Participants interacted with the facilitator through Zoom polls and a chat window that was anonymous to other participants. Participants did not directly interact with each other, and the facilitator mediated sessions by verbally asking for message feedback and sharing key suggestions with the group for additional feedback. This approach plausibly enhanced participant anonymity and confidentiality during the sessions. Results: Participants rated messages highly in terms of liking (overall rating: mean 2.63, SD 0.58; reciprocity: mean 2.65, SD 0.52; reciprocity-by-proxy: mean 2.58, SD 0.53; curiosity involving interactive oral health questions and answers: mean 2.45, SD 0.69; curiosity involving tailored brushing feedback: mean 2.77, SD 0.48) on a scale ranging from 1 (do not like it) to 3 (like it). Qualitative feedback indicated that the participants preferred messages that were straightforward, enthusiastic, conversational, relatable, and authentic. Conclusions: This formative research has the potential to guide the design of messages for future digital health behavioral interventions targeting individuals from diverse racial and ethnic populations. Insights emphasize the importance of identifying key stimuli and tasks that require engagement, gathering multiple perspectives during message development, and using new approaches for collecting both quantitative and qualitative data while mitigating anonymity and confidentiality concerns.