Designing mobile health to align with the social determinants of health

Courtney C Rogers; Sophia S Jang; Whitney Tidwell; Sarah Shaughnessy; Juliane Milburn; Fern R Hauck; Ishan C Williams; Rupa S Valdez

doi:10.3389/fdgth.2023.1193920

Designing mobile health to align with the social determinants of health

Front Digit Health. 2023 May 18:5:1193920. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2023.1193920. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Courtney C Rogers¹, Sophia S Jang², Whitney Tidwell³, Sarah Shaughnessy⁴, Juliane Milburn⁵, Fern R Hauck⁶, Ishan C Williams⁷, Rupa S Valdez^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
² Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
³ Richmond City Health District, Richmond, VA, United States.
⁴ City of Raleigh Municipal Government, Raleigh, NC, United States.
⁵ Department of Family and Community Health Nursing, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States.
⁶ Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
⁷ School of Nursing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, United States.

Abstract

The maternal health crisis in the United States is becoming increasingly worse, with disparities continuing to escalate among marginalized populations. mHealth can contribute to addressing the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) that produce inequities in maternal morbidity and mortality. Reducing inequities through mHealth can be achieved by designing these technologies to align with SDOH. As mHealth developed to support maternal health has primarily supported the extension of clinical care, there is an opportunity to integrate frameworks and methods from human factors/ergonomics and public health to produce thorough comprehension of SDOH through intentional partnerships with marginalized populations. Potential for this opportunity is presented through a case study derived from a community-based participatory research process focused on transportation access to maternal health services. Through multi-faceted, interdisciplinary, and community-based approaches to designing mHealth that attends to the systemic factors that generate and escalate inequities, improvements in the maternal health crisis could be realized.

Keywords: health inequities; health informatics; maternal health; patient ergonomics; social determinants of health.

Grants and funding

Research that informed the content of this article was funded by a 4VA Collaborative Research Grant and by a Center for Global Health Equity Scholar Award at the University of Virginia. Courtney C. Rogers received funding through an Endowed Fellowship through the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science.