Digital Health Platform for Maternal Health: Design, Recruitment Strategies, and Lessons Learned From the PowerMom Observational Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND

Maternal health research faces challenges in participant recruitment, retention, and data collection, particularly among underrepresented populations. Digital health platforms like PowerMom (Scripps Research) offer scalable solutions, enabling decentralized, real-world data collection. Using innovative recruitment and multimodal techniques, PowerMom engages diverse cohorts to gather longitudinal and episodic data during pregnancy and post partum.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to evaluate the design, implementation, and outcomes of the PowerMom research platform, with a focus on participant recruitment, engagement, and data collection across diverse populations. Secondary objectives included identifying challenges encountered during implementation and deriving lessons to inform future digital maternal health studies.

METHODS

Participants were recruited via digital advertisements, pregnancy apps, and the PowerMom Consortium of more than 15 local and national organizations. Data collection included self-reported surveys, wearable devices, and electronic health records. Anomaly detection measures were implemented to address fraudulent enrollment activity. Recruitment trends and descriptive statistics from survey data were analyzed to summarize participant characteristics, assess engagement metrics, and quantify missing data to identify gaps.

RESULTS

Overall, 5617 participants were enrolled from 2021 to 2024, with 69.8% (n=3922) providing demographic data. Of these, 48.5% (2723/5617) were younger than 35 years, 14% (788/5617) identified as Hispanic or Latina, and 13.7% (770/5617) identified as Black or African American. Geographic representation spanned all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, and Guam, with 58.3% (3276/5617) residing in areas with moderate access to maternity care and 16.4% (919/5617) in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods based on the Area Deprivation Index. Enrollment rates increased substantially over the study period, from 55 participants in late 2021 to 3310 in 2024, averaging 99.4 enrollments per week in 2024. Participants completed a total of 17,123 surveys, with 71.8% (4033/5617) completing the Intake Survey and 12.4% (697/5617) completing the Postpartum Survey. Wearable device data were shared by 1168 participants, providing more than 378,000 daily biometric measurements, including activity levels, sleep, and heart rate. Additionally, 96 participants connected their electronic health records, contributing 276 data points such as diagnoses, medications, and laboratory results. Among pregnancy-related characteristics, 28.1% (1578/5617) enrolled during the first trimester, while 15.1% (849/5617) reported information about the completion of their pregnancies during the study period. Among the 913 participants who shared delivery information, 56.1% (n=512) had spontaneous vaginal deliveries and 17.9% (n=163) underwent unplanned cesarean sections.

CONCLUSIONS

The PowerMom platform demonstrates the feasibility of using digital tools to recruit and engage diverse populations in maternal health research. Its ability to integrate multimodal data sources showcases its potential to provide comprehensive maternal-fetal health insights. Challenges with data completeness and survey attrition underscore the need for sustained participant engagement strategies. These findings offer valuable lessons for scaling digital health platforms and addressing disparities in maternal health research.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03085875; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03085875.