Institutionalizing human-computer interaction for global health

ABSTRACT

Digitalization is the societal change process in which new ICT-based solutions bring forward completely new ways of doing things, new businesses and new movements in the society. Digitalization also provides completely new ways of addressing issues related to global health. This paper provides an overview of the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) and in what way the field has contributed to international development in different regions of the world. Additionally, it outlines the United Nations’ new sustainability goals from December 2015 and what these could contribute to the development of global health and its relationship to digitalization. Finally, it argues why and how HCI could be adopted and adapted to fit the contextual needs, the need for localization and for the development of new digital innovations. The research methodology is mostly qualitative following an action research paradigm in which the actual change process that the digitalization is evoking is equally important as the scientific conclusions that can be drawn. In conclusion, the paper argues that digitalization is fundamentally changing the society through the development and use of digital technologies and may have a profound effect on the digital development of every country in the world. But it needs to be developed based on local practices, it needs international support and to not be limited by any technological constraints. Particularly digitalization to support global health requires a profound understanding of the users and their context, arguing for user-centred systems design methodologies as particularly suitable.

SPECIAL ISSUE:

• mHealth for Improved Access and Equity in Health Care

KEYWORDS:

• Human-computer interaction
• digitalization
• action research
• health care
• global health

Responsible Editor Nawi Ng, Umeå University, Sweden

Responsible Editor Nawi Ng, Umeå University, Sweden

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge Åsa Cajander, Uppsala University, and Christiane Grünloh, KTH, for all their inputs on the manuscript. The article was published thanks to financial support from the Wallenberg Foundation and Umeå University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethics and consent

Not required.

Paper context

Based on our extensive experiences of digitalization and studies of human computer interaction both in health and care and in other domains, and using our experiences from bringing these subjects forward to developing countries I have reasoned about the experiences drawn and what implications these experiences potentially can have when bringing it to developing countries. We argue for an action-oriented research paradigm using user-centred design methodologies to institutionalize user-centred systems design for global health.

Additional information

Funding

None.

Notes on contributors

Jan Gulliksen

As main author I have contributed all text, analysis and synthesis and I have used the acknowledged authors to provide input and help with proofreading