An interview with the 2022 Lumivero Grant recipient, Dr. Xanne Janssen, on helping families shape a “better day”
Embarking on a research journey is both exhilarating and challenging, especially for those just starting their academic careers. Recognizing the unique hurdles early career researchers face—like competing with seasoned scholars for funding—Lumivero introduced the Early Career Researcher Grant.
In 2022, Dr. Xanne Janssen from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland received the grant for her mixed methods study, “Parents’ Barriers and Facilitators to Building Better Days.” Her work focuses on supporting families to encourage healthy habits in young children. The study’s goal was to uncover the everyday factors that get in the way of better routines and, ultimately, help prevent childhood obesity.
Recently, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Janssen to discuss her research journey, the insights she gained, and how her findings are paving the way for new approaches to promoting healthy lifestyles among children. Continue reading for fresh insights into Dr. Janssen’s research, process, and findings.
Mixed-methods breakthroughs: Understanding children's health through data and dialogue
Dr. Janssen combined online focus groups, known as asynchronous remote communities (ARC), with insights from wearable activity trackers. Through this mixed methods design, she and her team gathered an in-depth view of how families approach movement, screen use, and sleep.
“It’s obviously super rewarding to see it come kind of to an end and start reflecting on the results and the impact that they might have,” she said about the project. “It’s been super fun to work with the families throughout the project, and it’s been a really great experience to hear from them.”
Though the study itself has concluded, Dr. Janssen anticipates that its methods and findings will pave the way for new approaches to fostering healthy lifestyles in young children around the world.
NVivo played a key role in managing and integrating the data, from the online focus group comments to the activity-monitoring metrics collected through ActiGraph accelerometers. Dr. Janssen comes from a quantitative research background, but this was her first time leading a project with a strong qualitative element. “I definitely learned a lot,” she said. “Once we got to the analysis phases, [NVivo] just streamlined a lot of things for us.”
Below are four perspectives on how Dr. Janssen’s project aligns with Lumivero’s vision of using research to “break through” limitations, doubts, and risks—especially when it comes to public health.
Breaking through silos: Connecting families and researchers for better health
Families, healthcare providers, and policymakers often operate under separate systems with limited communication. Dr. Janssen wanted to bridge these gaps by talking directly with parents to understand their day-to-day challenges. She opted for ARCs, a strategy built around online focus groups that have no set meeting times. Families could respond whenever it fit their schedule, which led to higher participation rates.
A traditional focus group can be inaccessible for parents who juggle childcare, work shifts, and limited transportation. By removing the requirement to attend at a specific place or time, Dr. Janssen opened the door to a broader mix of participants. “It really enabled those families to come on board,” she said, noting that parents often appreciated the flexibility of responding in the evenings or at other quiet moments, “Because they could do it in their own time, and people are on social media a lot.”
The Lumivero Grant gave Dr. Janssen the resources to hire a research assistant and integrate NVivo software into every stage of the process. While the online focus groups provided open-ended feedback, the ActiGraph accelerometers offered objective metrics of children’s physical activity and sleep. NVivo became the repository for coding and analyzing all these data streams, making it easier to spot common themes among participants who faced a variety of financial, geographic, and time constraints.
Lumivero’s approach to supporting research brings these different angles together—quantitative trackers, qualitative focus groups, and robust analysis tools—so that innovators like Dr. Janssen can break down barriers in healthcare research. By inviting new voices into the conversation, especially those underrepresented in formal health studies, the project offered a more complete view of how a child’s environment, family structure, and routines intersect.
Breaking through doubt: How research helps families navigate health guidelines with confidence
Doubt can arise when families hear about healthy lifestyles and guidelines. Parents may wonder if screen use is truly detrimental or if it’s reasonable to expect children to be physically active every day. Dr. Janssen’s work set out to address those hesitations and highlight why these recommendations matter. Dr. Janssen noted that parents appreciated seeing the activity profiles, which gave them the opportunity to reflect on their routines and create space for a deeper conversation.
The World Health Organization emphasizes that it’s important to prevent childhood obesity in children under five. Yet parents often don’t know the exact guidelines or how they translate into everyday life. Dr. Janssen saw in her study that while many families knew about the sleep recommendations, only some understood the importance of limiting screen time. The parent questionnaires confirmed that screen time adherence was generally low, even though many children met physical activity and sleep targets.
Hearing from families directly revealed the layers of doubt they deal with—cost, lack of childcare, and limited play facilities. Some parents said they relied on screens to keep a child busy while juggling housework. Others saw screen time as beneficial, not realizing the difference between short educational clips and passive, hours-long sessions. With NVivo’s help, Dr. Janssen’s team analyzed these perspectives side-by-side with quantitative data.
When parents became aware of the guidelines and the reasoning behind them, doubt often turned into motivation. “Once they became aware, that’s when they actually went like, okay, well, actually, there is evidence behind it,” Dr. Janssen explained. “We need to maybe make some changes or think about how we go about our routines.”
Sharing that information without judgment encouraged parents to weigh the tradeoffs between screen time and more active engagements such as outdoor play or hands-on games.
Breaking through the status quo: Overcoming barriers to healthy routines
Children in underserved or rural areas often face environmental constraints—from lack of free playgroups to longer travel times to parks or sports facilities. Dr. Janssen’s “better day” framework zeroed in on these challenges, focusing on how children’s movement, sleep, and screen use shape their health prospects. She found that family schedules, work demands, and limited policy awareness contribute to routines that may be harder to change.
By relying on an asynchronous remote community, Dr. Janssen could include parents who rarely see these opportunities for research. While some were in rural Scotland, others were in urban regions with limited finances. The discussions revealed that children in both contexts faced comparable screen-time concerns. Cost didn’t emerge as a big factor for active play in Dr. Janssen’s sample, possibly because many parents with young kids rely on local parks rather than structured clubs.
NVivo’s mixed methods capabilities allowed Dr. Janssen to compare families who already met WHO guidelines with those who had never heard of them. She set up “cases” in NVivo to organize participants by income level, guidelines awareness, and location, then linked those details to the families’ discussion posts. The software provided a clear snapshot of how themes like childcare, work hours, and local infrastructure shape these behaviors—helping the team see exactly why many families get stuck in status quo patterns.
Breaking through risk: Addressing the long-term impact of early childhood routines
When young children miss out on regular movement and spend too much time on screens, the risks extend beyond immediate health concerns. Researchers note that these patterns, established early on, can persist through adolescence and adulthood, setting children up for greater chances of obesity and related conditions. Dr. Janssen wanted to reveal how these risks accumulate, particularly for low-income families who may not have resources to address them.
Her study highlighted the unique importance of “better day” thinking. Rather than imposing strict rules, she encouraged parents to become more aware of each part of a child’s routine—sleep, active play, and screen time. Families discovered that small changes could shift the balance, whether it was limiting screen use by half an hour or adding an extra walk outside.
“Hopefully, the work will feed into other projects,” Dr. Janssen said. “Other research studies, intervention development, and maybe even policy development, depending on where it goes.”
She also noted how closely the study aligns with broader public health priorities, pointing to the World Health Organization’s focus on the early years. Childhood obesity can undermine learning, social development, and overall physical well-being. By reducing the risks early, Dr. Janssen believes policymakers, schools, and families can lessen the strain on health systems down the line.
Lumivero, through its NVivo software and supportive grants, recognizes that meaningful research doesn’t just happen in labs or isolated academic settings. It happens when parents, children, and community members can weigh in on what stands in their way. This collaborative spirit is at the heart of Dr. Janssen’s work, and she remains optimistic about where it can lead. “One of my colleagues actually did just receive some funding to build on this project and…focus on children with learning disabilities,” she said.
NVivo will likely remain a key tool in these efforts. Dr. Janssen credits the software for helping her integrate datasets and compare perspectives across different family profiles—something she calls a steep but rewarding learning curve, considering she comes from a quantitative research background. “It was a very good learning curve that will have really enhanced my skill in that area and help me with future studies.”
As more studies adapt her method of online focus groups combined with wearable trackers, families who have often been overlooked may get a seat at the table. That is at the core of breaking through risks and improving long-term health. The conversations that begin in an ARC are rooted in real life—parents can scroll through a prompt on a phone during their lunch break, respond at night after the kids are asleep, or post on a weekend when they have a moment to reflect.
Dr. Janssen hopes these findings encourage policymakers and practitioners to be more mindful of the daily realities that shape a child’s health. She also hopes they will help fellow researchers adapt similar methods for other contexts and countries. “A child in Malawi probably has completely different challenges… that’s not to say the work is not useful,” she said. “The context in which they live determines which barriers and facilitators they are experiencing.”
By connecting meaningful stories with solid data, Dr. Janssen and Lumivero continue to show that public health research can inspire positive change. It starts with hearing from families themselves, turning those insights into knowledge, and empowering both parents and policymakers with better ways to ensure a healthier tomorrow.
A lasting impact: How research and innovation shape healthier communities
This conversation with Dr. Janssen not only highlighted the challenges faced by families in underserved areas but also presented practical ways to overcome them through a blend of thoughtful research and innovative technology. By incorporating both qualitative feedback and quantitative data, her work offers a clear example of how research can make a positive impact.
At Lumivero, we are committed to supporting researchers with advanced research and decision-making software that enable deeper insights to drive real-world impact. As Dr. Janssen’s research shapes public health approaches, her findings highlight that every family’s experience and every data point contribute to a broader movement toward building healthier, more resilient communities.
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