Blending AI with an experienced bestie, Rosie the Chatbot is a text platform designed for pregnant and new moms of color that offers crucial resources during those 3 a.m. feedings or spiking temperatures.
Sharing resources - and support – is a goal Rosie shares with the people behind the bot, including Francia Ximena Marin Gutierrez, research coordinator for the Rosie study in the University of Maryland School of Public Health’s Community THRIVES Lab.
“Our lab is a space where we work together to uplift the voices of vulnerable communities. Most of our research focuses on the experiences that women of color, foster youth and LGBTQ+ individuals encounter,” Gutierrez said. “We learn about their challenges, needs, mental health, sexual health, used and needed resources and – based on the findings – we inform research.”
While Rosie is handheld, people like Gutierrez and Lab director Dr. Elizabeth Aparicio are the hands holding the program together, compassionately working to understand the needs of underserved communities and to ensure that platforms like Rosie can effectively and empathetically provide real support in tough times.
Gutierrez and Aparicio work in collaboration with Rosie co-principal investigator Dr. Thu Nguyen from SPH, collaborator Dr. Quynh Nguyen from the NIH’s National Institute of Nursing Research, and co-investigators Dr. Jordan Boyd-Graber from UMD’s Department of Computer Science and Dr. Xin He from SPH.
For her part, Guitierrez has put her master’s in social work to good use, leading partnership development, enrolling participants, collecting and analyzing data and helping develop the platform itself, even sending handwritten birthday cards for moms and their new babies.
“Francia is an integral part of the Community THRIVES Lab. We couldn't do our work without her,” Aparicio said. “She has a gift for making each community member she engages with feel comfortable and at ease, including our Latinx community members.”
The Rosie team is also developing a Spanish-language version of Rosie, which Gutierrez presented at a recent event held by Coaching Salud Holistica.
“We are health coaches, community health workers and doulas working in the community and believe in aligning ourselves with community partners working in the maternal health space to increase access and health literacy,” said Jhoselyn Rodriquez, CEO and founder of Coaching Salud Holistica. “The [Rosie] team's dedication to this population allows us as community health workers to then provide additional support to the perinatal population.”
“The main goal of Rosie is to help vulnerable individuals,” Gutierrez said. “Many Spanish speakers who are in the country do not receive enough support and resources. We want Rosie to reach and help as many people and partners as possible.”
To do just that, the bilingual Gutierrez has worked to ensure the Spanish-language version isn’t just a verbatim translation.
Francia has helped the team understand both cultural aspects and the accuracy of passages sent back to moms in the chatbot app.
“Francia has helped the team understand both cultural aspects and the accuracy of passages sent back to moms in the chatbot app. She has also led demonstrations of Rosie in Spanish for communities across the DMV,” Aparicio said.
“Our community health workers were able to connect with her and learn more about the project that they are looking forward to now bringing to the community,” Rodriquez said.
The work with Rosie is representative of the THRIVES Lab’s participatory approach, where the lab works with the communities they serve, from design to dissemination, to ensure their research is informed and used by community-based organizations.
“I am very proud of the work we do,” Gutierrez said. “We take the time needed to learn about the experiences of people in the communities Rosie serves and do our best to create awareness and resources for them. We work with and for the people who need our help the most.”
Rosie the Chatbot is now enrolling pregnant and new mothers of color and their infants. Learn more about the project in a short video and in Maryland Today.