OVERVIEW: The Community Engagement (CE) group within SC CTSI has introduced Zippy, the virtual research navigator to engage children and families in clinical research, at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
GOALS: The virtual research navigator is designed to interact with families, address concerns and misperceptions about clinical research, answer questions, and empower families and young people to be informed research participants.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES: In collaboration with USC’s Institute for Creative Technology, we developed a beta version of Zippy and supplied it with a compendium of questions and concerns that potential pediatric research participants and their families might have. Feedback from an initial pilot with adolescents/parents revealed that Zippy was engaging and informative. We are currently conducting a randomized trial with forty participants to formally evaluate Zippy's effectiveness to increase knowledge and readiness for clinical research.