An online community for municipal actors in health promotion: Analysis of needs and usage behavior

Abstract

Background: In the last 10 years, the systematic crosslinking and networking of offerings in community-based health promotion in different fields, and the personnel behind them, has seen growing significance in Germany. While several fields use online communities as a means of building and managing networks (e. g., for working in distributed teams), such systems aren’t yet common in the public health sector. Objectives: We study an online community that aims to aid the networking of health promotion personnel, e. g., in the domains of early childhood intervention (Frühe Hilfen), health equity, and the prevention of addiction. Our goal is to identify the potential of online networking in the field. Methods: In a qualitative interview study of experts in the field, we collected feasible ways to aid in critical work incidents. In quantitative surveys, users of the online community at hand rated usability and other motivational factors. Log file data assessed actual usage of different platform features. Results: The results indicate that the target group’s primary demands are tools for the retrieval of high-quality information and for managing existing networks. High usability of the platform and beneficial organizational structures are requirements for broad usage. Under the current circumstances, users’ readiness to share their own documents and information is low. Conclusions: We make recommendations on how to implement our findings and describe requirements for successful tapping of the described potentials.