P3.L238: Pages for Pediatrics: An Advocacy Effort to Promote Patient Wellbeing through Illness-Inclusive Children’s Storybooks.

Background: In the face of health-related stigma and societal misperceptions, pediatric patients often struggle to cope with the social and emotional challenges of their medical conditions. The difficulty of navigating such obstacles may contribute to higher levels of patient anxiety and loneliness, ultimately leading to poorer health outcomes. It is important to address the emotional needs of pediatric patients and educate the broader community by representing pediatric health conditions in a more accessible way.

Project Description: Pages for Pediatrics (PFP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that promotes representation of pediatric health conditions by writing and illustrating original children’s storybooks. We are an advocacy effort that harnesses the power of narrative mirroring by centering our stories around characters and experiences that pediatric patients can relate to as a means of providing comfort to our readers. Our stories focus on an array of stigmatized pediatric health conditions and are carefully reviewed by health professionals and patient organizations for medical accuracy. We donate our books to children's hospitals and elementary schools across the nation to maximize our impact and ensure unhindered access to our books.

Initially founded as a UCLA student club in 2021, PFP has now grown into a California-registered nonprofit with three student affiliates at UCLA, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and Northeastern University. Over the last three years, our organization has published three children’s books on pediatric prosthetics, achondroplasia, and Type 1 diabetes, and is on track to publish two more this year on pediatric cancer and alopecia. We have donated over 100 copies of our books to patient families, elementary schools, and established institutions including Stanford's Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, UCSF Benioff, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Children’s National Hospital, and more (Image 1). Our members also organize read-alongs of our books at hospitals and schools to teach young readers how to respond to health differences amongst their peers (Image 2).

Discussion: The multitude of positive book reviews that we receive from patients, children’s hospital departments, and elementary schools are a testament to our stories’ transformative impact in empowering pediatric patients within and outside the hospital. Additionally, our growth from twenty UCLA students to eighty students across the nation in just three years highlights the tremendous passion behind our project and scope to promote medical diversity in children’s literary spaces. This year, we hope to expand to a new student affiliate, draft books for pediatric deafness and speech impairments, and donate copies of our books to more hospitals and elementary schools.

Conclusion: Amidst ever-present social challenges for the pediatric patient community, PFP’s storybooks foster inclusion and possess great potential to promote patient wellbeing by cultivating strong feelings of community and belonging in its readers. [https://www.pagesforpediatrics.org/]