Congratulations to Bonnie Brammall, awarded the People’s Choice Award for her presentation: A mixed-methods exploration Australian women’s engagement and acceptability of a digital preconception healthy lifestyle intervention: The OptimalMe Program

• What does this award mean to you?

Completing my PhD throughout the last few years has meant I have had limited experience presenting at external functions or conferences. While I am usually a confident speaker, I found myself extremely nervous the day before and reluctant to present. So, receiving the prize was an extremely well received, and needed, confidence boost!

• What was the key takeaway from your presentation?

I presented acceptability and engagement results from a digital lifestyle and health promotion intervention for Australian women during preconception. The key takeaway from this work is the importance of personalised support within digital interventions. While our intervention demonstrated high levels of engagement and acceptability, coaching appeared to be crucial in driving this engagement, and it also enhanced the acceptability of digital behaviour change tools. As we continue to explore digital health and remote delivery of lifestyle, behaviour change, and health promotion interventions, the human element remains an essential factor to ensure participants feel supported and engaged with program objectives.

• What are you working towards next?

I have now progressed into a post-doctoral position where I am supporting the further development of this work into scaled delivery in antenatal care within the hospital setting.

• What did you think of this year’s HiPPP EMR-C conference?

I really enjoyed it. It is such a great network of people and it’s always interesting to hear about work so closely linked to your own. Unfortunately I could not be there in person this year but I hope to be next year!