Personas: Moms Lynda Banzi, Holly Batchelder, Charlotte Rowe, Jacob Silberstein

Persona 1: New stay-at-home mom Katie, 28: married with newborn Katie is a brand new mother. She is on maternity leave from her job as an elementary school teacher at her local public school. Parenting is new to her, but luckily she has the support of her husband (when he is home) and her parents (who only live about a 30 minute drive away). When she is home during the weekday, and her husband is at work, she runs around her house cooking, cleaning, and tending to her baby’s needs. She is exhausted but tries to keep it together the best she can. She is college educated and tech savvy, so when she has a free moment she checks Facebook & Blogs for parenting tips, Twitter for general news, and Pinterest & Instagram for fun. Her smartphone is a lifesaver since she can carry it wherever she goes. Plus, it’s super convenient for taking pictures of her baby and posting them on social media.

Persona 1 Katie, 28: married with newborn One Monday morning, Katie is home and following her routine of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of baby. She runs the news throughout the day so she doesn’t feel too lonely. Mid-morning she notices her baby feels a bit warm. She starts to panic because she’s not sure how warm is too warm. She recalls hearing something on Good Morning America that a sickness is going around, and immediately thinks it might have reached her baby. She can’t remember exactly what the sickness is, so she runs to the computer to Google “Good Morning America sickness.” She clicks on the top search result, which brings her to the ABC health website.

Persona 2: Claire Experienced working mom Claire, 43, works full-time in marketing at a large firm in New York City, requiring about 4 hours of commuting time each day. She has 3 children in elementary school: a daughter, 11; daughter, 9; and son, 7. Her work-from-home husband and part-time sitter are the primary caregivers during the day. While she schedules all the doctor appointments, her husband brings them or she does so when she can work from home. Her major health concerns include the challenge of the family eating healthily when meals are rarely together and prepared quickly. The tight schedule provides little time for personal workouts to stay in shape and reduce stress. Even a challenge to schedule well visits at doctor and dentist. Any illnesses that are going around at the school get her attention as do high fevers and any clearly visible problems like rashes. Children’s health before parents’.

Claire... Claire is highly wired, though prefers not to be online in the evenings or on the weekends. She watches little real-time TV and uses Netflix and Amazon for entertainment. She gets news from CNN alerts on phone, reading print New York Times on train, and viral messages. Twitter is for professional use, Facebook for social, for personal and kids scheduling, Instagram for personal, and websites for shopping and info. She depends on Google calendar. Claire would be unlikely to be introduced to an ABC health news story directly from one of the ABC shows. However, one morning on the train when she is catching up on her Facebook updates, a friend posts an ABC video about an unexplained fever raging through schools in the New York metro area. She immediately clicks on it to seek further information about the spread of the illness and what she can do to protect her children.

Persona 3: Adoptive New Mom Family Laurie, 50, married to Todd, 52. They recently adopted brothers Luke 12, Rick 14. It is their first time raising a family and they have little experience with kids. Laurie is an only child and Todd’s brother has kids but lives far away from the couple. Lifestyle & Habits Laurie works from home full-time. She is on-line occasionally and has a smartphone but not very savvy. Doesn’t use apps. She relies on Google search for most things. Seeking Health Info Rick has just started to have stomach aches in the morning but not for the rest of the day. Laurie is not sure if she needs to take him to the doctor. She is hesitant to ask for help because she doesn’t want to be seen as incompetent. Her mom used to rely on advice from Dr. Tim Johnson, so she searches for him and finds a link to ABC News Health.

Persona 4: Mom to child with allergies Gail, 34, Single Two sons - Mason, 10; James, 6; James has peanut/tree nut allergies Gail works as an adjunct English professor at the local community college. Her parents help with childcare when she is not able to be home. Gail uses regularly for her job and has a facebook account that she uses to keep in touch with family and friends. She uses her smartphone to read news headlines when commuting to and from work. Gail does some online shopping, mostly focused on items for her sons, especially nut free foods for James.

Persona 4: Mom to child with allergies While at work one day, Gail overhears some colleagues talking about a young girl who died of anaphylactic shock during a book fair at her school. This piques her interest and when she gets back to her office, she goes to Google to see if she can find information about the story. She types in the term “anaphylactic shock book fair” and clicks on the top result, which brings her to the Yahoo news coverage of the incident. While browsing the article, she sees a sidebar with information about the Yahoo news and ABC news partnership. She goes back to her google search and looks for the ABC news coverage and ends up at ABC News Health page.