KeepMEWell: A web-based application to decrease uninsured and underinsured Maine residents' risk of chronic disease

The Maine Governor's Universal Wellness Initiative is aimed at helping Maine reach its goals of ensuring that all persons in Maine have access to resources and evidence-based interventions in order to better know, understand, and address health risks and to improve health and prevent disease. KeepMEWell (i.e., Keep Maine Well) is a major part of the Universal Wellness Initiative. It is a web-based application designed to help Maine residents – especially those uninsured or underinsured – assess their risk for chronic disease, improve their health through education, and link them to local resources and supports that can help them decrease their risk of chronic disease and improve their health. Evaluation of the web-based application focuses on: (i) the uptake of the website; (ii) the type of promotional activity reported as most effective by users; and (iii) whether the web-based application is reaching its target audience, i.e. uninsured and underinsured residents in Maine. The mixed methods evaluation design includes manual log keeping as well as database and website analytics. Initial data suggests that KeepMEWell is succeeding in reaching a subset of its target audience. Computer access and computer literacy are seen as the two main barriers to broader reach. This paper will present the evaluation results from 10 months of web-application promotion and use. It will describe the user characteristics and highlight the subsets of the target audience were able to be reached through this tool as well as present qualitative data describing creative solutions undertaken by the local public health infrastructure in overcoming access barriers.