Cut to the arrival of COVID-19. The researchers pivoted to focus on using the MSMH app to confront the
pandemic, particularly in those undeserved communities where it was most destructive. UMN CTSI quickly
supported the effort with funding through its COVID-19 Rapid Response Seed Grant program. Partnering with M
Health Fairview hospital system, the project engaged 400+ patients to use the app.
The
self-reported data from the app has helped researchers identify hidden strengths—and needs—of the most
vulnerable. For example, findings show that for many participants, a strong community connection translates
into a greater sense of resilience during COVID-19. In fact, participants who say they are well-connected to
community resources reported more strengths across all health domains. Along with the many other insights it
has provided, the MSMH app has shown the potential benefits when that well-connected sense of community also
defines the collaboration between research institutions and the greater public they serve—during COVID-19
and beyond.
COVID-19 Fatigue
According to findings gathered with the MSMH app, simply being tired has a profound influence on
whole-person health. Participants who have identified fatigue as a challenge are less likely to have
strengths in the areas of mental health, circulation, pain, physical activity, and caretaking/parenting.
And when asked how care providers and community organizations can best help them, 74% of participants
identified mental health among their top needs.
Plainly Speaking
The success of the MSMH app is built on the simplicity of its interface. In order to promote truthful and
accurate responses from users, the app replaces the technical language of lab and medical professionals
with real-world identifiers and concepts. So while it leverages the rigor of the Omaha System (Martin,
2005) to address health across four domains with 42 discrete concepts, nearly 30% of the terminology it
uses is based on direct input from partnering community members.
Omaha System domains
Environmental
Psychosocial
Physiological
Health-related
Behaviors
In MSMH App
My Living
My Mind and Network
My Body
My Self-care
It started out as part of a dissertation project in 2017. At that time in her research, Robin Austin, now
Assistant Professor at UMN School of Nursing, was focused on better understanding the individual health
challenges and needs of women with cardiovascular disease, by taking into account the perceived strengths that
each reported about the communities in which they resided.
Together with her colleague and PhD
advisor, Dr. Karen Monsen, Austin created the MyStrengths+MyHealth (MSMH) mobile app to enable users to
self-report strengths, challenges, and needs using a simplified version of the multi-disciplinary standardized
health terminology known as the Omaha System. With the MSMH app, users could easily make note not just of the
health challenges they faced, but also the strengths they acknowledged in themselves in facing those
challenges. Users could register their needs but also identify the assets in their community in which they
could find help.
Many of UMN CTSI’s funding programs are dedicated to ensuring that locally
underserved communities have access to information and research about important health issues. But by 2019,
the MSMH app had become an important component of that access. As part of a project called Shifting the Opioid
Conversation from Stigma to Strengths (S2S), the MSMH app helped to facilitate communication and dialogue
regarding opioid-use disorder, and more broadly demonstrated that when engaged as equal partners, community
members were interested in obtaining and using data that revealed a whole-person perspective.
PROJECT:
MyStrengths+MyHealth™ App
CTSA HUB:
University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute
PROJECT CREATOR(S):
Robin Austin, PhD, DNP, DC, RN-BC Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Karen Monsen, PhD, RN, FAMIA, FAAN Professor, School of Nursing
CTSA Program Hub Stories:
Researching Strength and Resilience
Increased collaboration between university researchers and underserved communities. Improved health
assessment of those hit hardest by COVID-19. For researchers at University of Minnesota, it was all just a
matter of creating the right mobile app.