Using the Design Thinking Approach for a University Health Promotion Program: A Pilot Study

University wellness programs often employ health campaigns to promote awareness and engagement in health behaviors. However, with limited resources, it is challenging to develop and test health campaign materials in a timely manner. The Design Thinking Approach (DTA) provides a promising strategy for developing materials in a quicker, less expensive way compared to traditional methods. This pilot study examined the feasibility and short-term impact of implementing the DTA to develop a self-care campaign at a university to reach students on campus. University peer health educators and staff completed a 5-session DTA workshop to learn how to apply the DTA to develop and test a self-care campaign. Feasibility of the approach was conducted by having workshop participants rate the acceptability and practicality of the process. To examine the short-term impact, the self-care campaign was compared to an existing mental health campaign. Results from the feasibility analysis indicated that the participants responded well to the approach and found it to be overall beneficial. Results also revealed that the self-care campaign had a greater number of event attendees compared to the existing mental health campaign. However, the reach on social media was similar, but slightly higher, for the existing mental health campaign. No significant difference in perceived effectiveness score was found. Results provide evidence for the potential for the DTA to be a feasible and efficient tool for testing health campaign ideas. However, more extensive testing is needed to understand its impact long-term and which feedback methods (e.g., interviews and surveys) are most useful.