An mHealth Approach to Addressing Health Inequity
ABSTRACT: Little is known at the local level how mHealth interventions support consumers’ goal of a healthy lifestyle and the impact of mHealth interventions on providing equitable care. This paper investigates: 1) the social determinants of health (SDOH) that affect the ability of people to be healthy and 2) clinicians use of mHealth interventions to facilitate equitable provision of healthcare. Socioeconomic and health data was collected from all 93 Nebraska counties. A positive correlation was found between the ability of people to be healthy and their access to health insurance and fresh food. A correlation was also discovered between poverty and the ability of people to be healthy and access food. A mobile app was then developed to provide information on available community resources for patients of a student-run free clinic. The contribution of this study is determining how mHealth can be used as a sustainable health equity intervention.
Keywords: Health equity, Social determinants of health, mHealth, Systems engineering, Sustainable development
Sustainable Development Through a Mobile Application for a Community Clinic
ABSTRACT: Implementing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions can alleviate pressing problems in society and are a central component of sustainable development. Often, healthcare addresses the symptoms without approaching the socioeconomic limiters that can lead to reduced individual economic freedoms from receiving healthcare. This paper investigates the question: How can technology and training interventions enable clinicians to offer care that addresses the socioeconomic limitations of their patients? This paper observes the implementation of a mobile app designed to offer people who cannot access health resources in Omaha, Nebraska, a city in the Midwestern United States. This study follows the design science and action research approach, with clinicians participating in developing the mobile app. As a result of COVID, patients no longer have access to the free clinic because it was shut down. The app is available to the broader community needing basic resources to stay healthy. Through sets of application revisions and observations of usage, this paper arrives at insights into how such applications can support multi-ethnic and underserved communities. The contribution of this paper is to provide contextually specific and rich descriptions of how to implement sustainable ICT solutions to meet the information needs of patients in underserved communities.
Keywords: Information and Communication Technologies, socioeconomic limiters, Mobile app, Sustainable development
