Keiki Heroes expands with an eye‑health activity book, multilingual rollout and school partnerships

The Network of the National Library of Medicine Region 5 hosted a webinar in which Dr. Mary Rose Dela Cruz, director of community health research at the Hawaii Public Health Institute and an associate researcher at the University of Hawaii, described Keiki Heroes, a children’s health-education series developed during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

“Keiki means child in Hawaiian,” Dr. Dela Cruz said, explaining that the program’s mascots, Kai and Hoku, were created to teach simple protective behaviors such as masking and handwashing and now model wider healthy habits including wearing glasses and healthy eating.

Keiki Heroes began as pandemic-era materials produced in many languages: Dr. Dela Cruz told attendees the project translated materials into 20 languages and disseminated about 25,000 printed items through partner networks during the pandemic. “We had 6,000 people engage with us, through social media, in a single day,” she added when recounting online reach.

The program’s newest product is a six‑page eye‑health activity book created with illustrator Yuko Green and developed in partnership with Project Vision, a community‑based organization that operates mobile vision screenings. Dr. Dela Cruz said the edition was funded with support from the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) and assistance from staff at the University of Washington; she also cited prior support from a U54 NIH grant that helped inform earlier material development.

Project Vision, Dr. Dela Cruz said, plans to distribute the eye‑health materials through its “Better Vision for Keiki” program, which screens students in Title I and charter schools; she said the program reaches about 20,000 students. The eye‑health book includes coloring pages, simple games and a pledge parents and children can sign to encourage follow‑up behaviors such as scheduling eye exams.

On translations and quality control, Dr. Dela Cruz emphasized a multi‑step review process: an initial translation, a back‑translation and an adjudicator to resolve wording and cultural nuances. “I do not I do not encourage to give it to your cousin to translate,” she said, arguing that health materials need careful linguistic review to match literacy levels and medical terminology.

Dr. Dela Cruz described how the team chooses topics and languages: they wait for community readiness and requests from champions or coalition members before committing to translation and printing. For example, partners requested a Marshallese edition; she said that hard copies are being planned once printing is complete.

She acknowledged limits to measuring long‑term health outcomes from education materials but described pragmatic measures the program uses to track reach: download counts, partner requests and social media engagement, along with anecdotal indicators such as partners returning to request more copies and empty shelves at distribution sites.

The Keiki Heroes team is also considering future editions, including oral health and a carefully designed approach to mental‑health resources; Dr. Dela Cruz said the group is weighing community input and potential risks to avoid retraumatizing children.

Materials are available for download at keikiheroesum.org (free, printable) and the presenter said hard copies can be requested for partner organizations; slides and a recording of the webinar will be posted on the NNLM Region 5 webinar page and YouTube channel in the days after the session.

Next steps identified in the presentation include finishing and printing a Marshallese edition, promoting the eye‑health book through Project Vision’s school outreach, preparing social media posts to increase awareness, and planning subsequent thematic editions if community partners request them.