Teen Ambassadors in Boston Needed for May & Summer!

We are researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and we’re very excited about a grant that we have from the Centers for Disease Control to improve the use of free sunscreen dispensers in Boston parks frequented by teens! We will be conducting this project this summer (2023) and next summer (2024).

The free dispensers are commonplace throughout Boston, but we want to figure out a way for more teens to use them. We are seeking Boston teenagers to serve as Teen Ambassadors to help us develop educational messaging on sunscreen and sun protection practices as well as promote sunscreen use on social media. Specifically, we’d like to find one teen from each of these four neighborhoods – the South End, Roxbury, Charlestown, and West Roxbury.

We’ll be asking the four Ambassadors help us to come up with teen-centered sun protection messages that can be on the top of the dispenser, and we’ll ask them to post messages on their social media platform to encourage their friends to come to their local parks and use the dispensers. Ambassadors’ contribution to the study will be so important in helping us to come up with the right messages for maximizing free sunscreen dispenser use to prevent skin damage, such as sunburns.

Qualifications:

• Ages: 16-19.
• Resident of Boston, living in one of the following neighborhoods: South End, Roxbury, Charlestown, or West Roxbury.
• Have an active and age-appropriate social media presence.
• Your social media accounts do not promote drug/alcohol use or any type of cyber-bullying.

Responsibilities:

• Attend two Zoom videoconference meetings with research team to brainstorm and provide feedback on sun protection messages for teenagers.
• Each Zoom videoconference will last approximately 50-60 minutes. We will start these calls as soon as we have our team of four hopefully beginning in early May.
• Post messages to your social media accounts encouraging your peers to use free sunscreen dispensers located at your neighborhood park.
• You will be asked to post up to 5 messages over the course of just 1 week during the summer of 2023.
• You should be willing/able to post publicly
• You will be asked to creatively integrate sun protection messaging into your content

The short term position will require four total hours of work. You will receive a $150 store gift card for completion of these brief activities.