About Us

Portfolio: Sunny Days Healthy Ways CD-ROMs

GOAl

Reduce sun exposure of students in grades K-5

CLIENT

A National Cancer Instititute Phase II SBIR grant to Klein Buendel

Target Audience

Students and teachers in grades K-5

OVERVIEW

KB produced three interactive CD-ROM companions to our elementary SDHW sun safety written curriculum. Each CD-ROM tailors prevention messages to users based on their personal risk factors (e.g., skin type, UV exposure, behavior and risk). Using games, animations and skill practice activities, SDHW presents theory-based education to change behavior and reduce sunburning.

KB evaluated the CD-ROMs in a group-randomized pretest-posttest controlled trial involving 61 classes at 12 elementary schools.

Results

During the study, classes were assigned to one of three conditions – CD-ROM only, written curriculum only or both. In K-1 classes, there was a significant pre-post increase in sun safety-related knowledge in all three conditions. The increase in the both condition was significantly higher than in the written only condition but not higher than in the CD-ROM only condition. The CD-ROM program also improved knowledge of sun safety in grades 2 and 3 when presented alone and substantially improved knowledge gains when coupled with the written curriculum. The CD-ROM program presented alone or with the written curriculum produced pre-post increases in reports of hat use and all three conditions resulted in increased reports of using sunscreen in winter. In grades 4 and 5, the CD-ROM program produced pre-post improvements in knowledge and the combination of CD-ROM and written resulted in larger knowledge improvements than written only.

Next Steps

The Sunny Days Healthy Ways CD-ROMs have been adopted by school districts in New Mexico, North Carolina and Colorado. They are available for purchase at www.sdhw.info.

Klein Buendel