ALTHEA

3AHealth is a partner of the project entitled ALTHEA CY: Disease prevention postpartum – enabling social connections to change health behaviours. The ALTHEA CY proposal has been selected under the Cyprus Research & Innovation Foundation’s “Excellence Hubs” programme. We are thrilled to be part of this forward-looking initiative and consortium!

RESPECT

Publishable Summary: The postpartum period represents a pivotal window for health behaviour change for women and their babies. ALTHEA CY aims to leverage digital health innovation and social network analysis to promote breastfeeding, physical activity, and sustained smoking abstinence during this critical life stage. By exploring how health beliefs and behaviours “spread” through social networks within communities of new mothers and their families, the project seeks to harness peer-based influence to enhance health outcomes. The key research objectives are: (i) develop a digital tool to foster peer support and promote cancer-preventative-linked behaviours in the postpartum phase; (ii) investigate how social connectedness and peer networks (via social network analysis) shape attitudes and behaviours around breastfeeding, physical activity and smoking; (iii) conduct a longitudinal study of social contagion of health behaviours and test how strategically placed network peers (peer mentors) can catalyse healthier lifestyles; (iv) create an open-access behavioural & social network dataset to support future research and policy-making. The implementation approach includes co-design workshops (with postpartum women and parent groups) of a mobile app, followed by pilot testing and network-based experimental interventions. The project will be executed by a multidisciplinary consortium spanning digital health, behavioural science, public health and community organisations across Cyprus.

 

Please visit the ALTHEA project website for more information: https://bsihlab.com/projects/althea/

 

This project is funded by the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation under the RESTART 2016–2020 Programme, Pillar II – Sustainable RTDI System, Programme: Excellence Hubs (EXCELLENCE/0524/0549).