Rapid co-design, implementation and evaluation of a digital behaviour change intervention to improve hand hygiene and limit spread of the COVID-19 outbreak

This COVID-19 Rapid Response award is jointly funded (50:50) between the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research. The figure displayed is the total award amount of the two funders combined, with each partner contributing equally towards the project. This project will evaluate how an existing digital public health intervention can be very rapidly adapted and optimised for the changing needs of an infection outbreak, using novel participatory-co-design methods, and building on partnerships with PHE and leading Chinese researchers. We will translate and immediately widely disseminate in both UK and China our NICE-endorsed 'Germ-Defence' digital infection control intervention for the general public. We will then engage with stakeholder (n=15) and PPI (n=20-30) online panels in each country to co-design, update and optimise the intervention as required for re-release in later and second phases of the outbreak. At every stage of dissemination we will document reach and impact using unobtrusive measures of usage and handwashing intentions and behaviour. We will triangulate these data with findings from online interviews with a purposive user sample (n=20-30) in each country to understand contextual effects on engagement. We will also carry out a rapid online trial in China (n = 1318) comparing the effects of the initial and adapted versions of the intervention on infection control beliefs, attitudes and behaviour, to evaluate the value of the adaptation process. This work is intended to contribute directly to the management of the outbreak by preventing infection transmission and slowing the spread of infection, so that the healthcare system will have more capacity to cope with demand. This work will also contribute to a better understanding of how to rapidly optimise public health interventions for future emergencies, and the factors influencing behaviour relevant to infection transmission.