Mobile health is a rapidly growing field that aims to improve the patient experience. However, current mHealth applications are created with a very Western-centric mindset, limiting the usage of these technologies in multicultural populations. This constraint highlights the need for increased cultural considerations in mHealth design, to provide all individuals access to these useful healthcare tools.
This project focuses on improving the usability of diabetes self-management applications for immigrant populations. Type 2 Diabetes is a chronic condition that disproportionately impacts immigrants. However, there is a lack of culturally-centered diabetes self-care education available to these individuals. Diabetes self-management applications, which increase awareness of factors that influence diabetes outcomes and incentivize positive lifestyle behaviours, could be a beneficial tool for immigrant populations.
This project uses the diabetes mobile application, bant II, as a primary testbed to identify the barriers preventing immigrants from using these self-management applications. Using this data, the project aims to improve the cross-cultural usability of diabetes self-management applications and inform future mHealth application design for immigrant communities.
Project members:
Plinio Morita, Principal Investigator
Vishnee Visagan, Honours Thesis Student
Last updated: April 18, 2018