Pilot Testing of Baby Feed: A Web Application for Health Professionals and Parents to Improve Infant Diets
Condition: Obesity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      This project will pilot test "Baby Feed" online web portals among clinicians and parents to
      learn about their experience with the portals. Baby Feed evaluates infant diets online using
      a validated Infant Food Frequency Questionnaire, provides immediate results online to health
      care providers on nutrients and foods/beverages consumed above or below the recommended
      levels, provides current diet recommendations by infant's age online, and helps track
      progress at home. The investigators will recruit 2 clinicians from Borinquen Health Care
      Center in Miami and 50 of their patients (parents with infants) scheduled for a routine
      Well-Child Visit when infants are 4-12 months old. Participants will be equally randomized to
      the intervention group or the control group. If randomized to Baby Feed, parents will discuss
      the results with the healthcare professional and track their infants' diets at home. Parents
      in the Control group will only complete the infant FFQ online but will not have access to the
      other features of Baby Feed. After 3 months, the investigators will evaluate the infant diet
      and weight gain during this period.
    

Detailed description: 
      This project will pilot test "Baby Feed" online web portals among clinicians and parents to
      learn about their experience with the portals. Baby Feed can (1) Quickly and easily evaluate
      infant diets online using a validated Infant Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) developed by
      the Principal Investigator [Parental Portal]; (2) Provide immediate results online to health
      care providers on nutrients and foods/beverages consumed above or below the recommended
      levels [Clinician Portal]; (3) Provide current diet recommendations by infant's age online to
      health care providers to discuss with parents, with the goal of improving their infant's diet
      [Clinician Portal]; (4) Give online access of the infant diet recommendations to parents for
      home implementation, with an online short tracking component [Parental Portal].

      The investigators will recruit 2 clinicians from Borinquen Health Care Center in Miami and 50
      of their patients (parents with infants) scheduled for a routine Well-Child Visit when
      infants are 4-12 months old. Participants will be equally randomized to the intervention
      group or the control group. All parents will first complete the Infant FFQ online. Those
      randomized to Baby Feed will discuss the results as a part of the Well-Child Visit with the
      healthcare professional, who will also have access to the results from the Clinician Portal.
      They will discuss the most relevant results and the dietary recommendations to follow at
      home. Parents will also be able to see the recommendations online in the Parental Portal in a
      friendly and graphic way to follow easily at home. Parents will be prompted to complete the
      online short tracking questions once per week to evaluate how well they are following the
      dietary recommendations during the duration of the study: 3 months. Parents in the Control
      group will only complete the infant FFQ online but will not have access to the other features
      of Baby Feed. After 3 months, the investigators will evaluate the infant diet by reviewing
      the results from the infant FFQ at baseline and 3 months later in both groups. The
      investigators will also evaluate weight gain during this period and compare between groups.
      For this, the investigators will ask all parents to complete online a short form with the
      weight and length of the baby as recorded by the nurse in each Well-Child Visit at baseline
      and follow-up visits.

      RISKS/BENEFITS: The main risk or discomfort from this research is the disclosure of personal
      information. The main benefit to those randomized to the intervention group is that
      clinicians will be receiving automatic results and dietary recommendations in "Baby Feed"
      online to discuss with parents, and for parents is receiving dietary recommendations from
      "Baby Feed" online to improve their infant's diet.

      IMPORTANCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE: Baby Feed could be an important tool to help promote adherence
      to diet recommendations which could translate into healthy weight gain during the first year
      and thus prevent long-term obesity.
    

Intervention name(s): Baby Feed
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Baby Feed web portals can (1) Quickly and easily evaluate infant diet using a validated Infant Food Frequency Questionnaire (infant FFQ) developed by our group14. [Parental FFQ portal]; (2) Provide automatic results to healthcare professionals on nutrients and foods/beverages consumed above or below the recommended levels to discuss with parents for improving the infant's diet. Also, to provide recommendations for amounts of foods/beverages that the infant should be consuming by age [Clinician Portal]; (3) Give online access to parents to these diet recommendations to implement at home, with an easy tracking component [Parent's Portal].
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Prevention