Development of a Teen-Friendly Health Education Program on Facebook: Lessons Learned

Abstract

Introduction: Facebook is the most popular online platform among adolescents and can be an effective medium to deliver health education. Although Korean American (KA) adolescents are at risk of obesity, a culturally tailored health education program is not available for them. Thus, our research team developed a health education program for KA adolescents on Facebook called "Healthy Teens." The aim of this study was to discuss important lessons learned through the program development process.

Method: This program includes culturally tailored learning modules about healthy eating and physical activity. The program was developed on the basis of the social cognitive theory, and the online program was developed by applying Web usability principles for adolescents. Upon completion, the usability of the program was assessed using heuristic evaluation.

Results: The findings from the heuristic evaluation showed that the Healthy Teens program was usable for KA adolescents.

Discussion: The findings from this study will assist researchers who are planning to build similar Facebook-based health education programs.

Keywords: Pediatric obesity; Web-based learning; social media; usability evaluation.