Grant Number:	1R01CA311039-01 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Manne, Sharon
Organization:	Rutgers Biomedical And Health Sciences
Project Title:	Playing It Safe in the Sun: a Parent-Focused, Social Media-Delivered Intervention to Improve Sun Safety for Young Children
Fiscal Year:	2026

Abstract Childhood is a critical period for reducing the risk of skin cancer later in life, and regular sun protection and avoidance of ultraviolet radiation are recommended. Unfortunately, sun protection among young children (ages 3-7) is low, and more than 80% of children experience at least one sunburn in the past summer. Young children have less capacity to manage their sun safety, leaving parents to carry the primary responsibility for fostering child sun protection across settings. Effective parenting for sun protection among young children can be challenging. Despite its importance, behavioral intervention research targeting parents is limited. Existing studies have focused solely on improving knowledge without incorporating key individual and interpersonal factors associated with child sun safety, have relied on intervention delivery methods that cannot be easily disseminated, do not harness normative influences from other parents, and have not used appropriate comparison groups controlling for time and attention. Social media-delivered interventions have the potential to reach parents of young children and harness the influences of parents of similarly aged children. deliver a parent-focused sun safety intervention using Facebook, which has the In the proposed project, we will potential for widespread scale- up, is popular with parents and may harness positive influences of user-generated messages from other parents of similar-age children. We conducted two pilot studies of Playing it Safe in the Sun (PSS) Facebook group intervention with a total of 117 parents of children aged 3 to 7. PSS included twice daily Facebook posts for six weeks (Pilot #1) or 12 weeks (Pilot #2) targeting individual (e.g., barriers, efficacy) and interpersonal (family norms, sun safety planning) factors. In both pilots, we observed medium to large effect sized changes in sun protection and weekday UV exposure. Effect sizes ranged from small to medium (Pilot #1) to medium to large (Pilot #2) for sunburn and from small to medium (Pilot #2) to large (Pilot #1) for weekend sun exposure. Effect sizes for potential mediators were stronger in Pilot #2, where we observed medium to large and large effect sizes. Evaluations were uniformly positive. In the proposed study, we will evaluate the PSS intervention against an active control condition, called the Healthy Kids (HK) Facebook intervention. We will conduct a randomized controlled trial of 600 parents recruited using hybrid methods (social media, texts). Aim 1 examines the efficacy of PSS vs. HK on child sun protection and exposure in a national randomized controlled trial. Aim 2 examines mechanisms of intervention efficacy (knowledge, risk, barriers, self-efficacy, parenting practices, family norms, planning). Aim 3 evaluates moderators of intervention efficacy (parent education, number of children in the home, general parenting style, child phenotypic risk, and engagement). If PSS is efficacious, in future work, we can evaluate different implementation channels such as parent social media groups, healthcare organizations, and other outlets for an implementation trial.





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