Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

"I Want My Chart to Be Just for Me": Community-Engaged Design to Support Outpatient Healthcare for Resettled Communities

Zhanming Chen, Juan F. Maestre, May Hang, Alisha Ghaju, Ji Youn Shin

TL;DR

Problem addressed: resettled communities face barriers to outpatient care due to language, culture, and socioeconomic factors. Approach: asset-based, community-engaged design via two CBPD workshops with 30 Hmong participants in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, analyzed through ABCD and thematic analysis. Findings: four assets—balancing cultural healing with Western medicine, intergenerational support with privacy, social ties, and storytelling—inform design directions for health technologies. Contributions: demonstrates asset-based design within HCI/CSCW and offers design implications to leverage community strengths, including privacy-aware, culturally resonant communication. Significance: provides practical guidance for developing outpatient health technologies that align with resettled communities’ lived experiences.

Abstract

Individuals resettled in a new environment often face challenges in accessing adequate healthcare services, particularly within the complex processes of outpatient clinic care. Cultural differences, language barriers, and low socioeconomic status contribute to these difficulties. While previous studies have identified barriers and proposed technology-mediated solutions for resettled populations, many focus on addressing deficits rather than building on the strengths these communities already possess, which limits the sustainability and relevance of these solutions in everyday life. We conducted two community-based participatory design workshops with 30 Hmong community members in a large metropolitan area in the US. Through this process, we identified four types of assets the community has gradually developed, including intergenerational support for health management and storytelling-based communication practices that facilitate relatable and culturally grounded interactions. We show how participatory design workshops can foster asset-based approaches, and discuss design implications for technologies that leverage patients' existing strengths to support their health management during outpatient visits.

"I Want My Chart to Be Just for Me": Community-Engaged Design to Support Outpatient Healthcare for Resettled Communities

TL;DR

Problem addressed: resettled communities face barriers to outpatient care due to language, culture, and socioeconomic factors. Approach: asset-based, community-engaged design via two CBPD workshops with 30 Hmong participants in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, analyzed through ABCD and thematic analysis. Findings: four assets—balancing cultural healing with Western medicine, intergenerational support with privacy, social ties, and storytelling—inform design directions for health technologies. Contributions: demonstrates asset-based design within HCI/CSCW and offers design implications to leverage community strengths, including privacy-aware, culturally resonant communication. Significance: provides practical guidance for developing outpatient health technologies that align with resettled communities’ lived experiences.

Abstract

Individuals resettled in a new environment often face challenges in accessing adequate healthcare services, particularly within the complex processes of outpatient clinic care. Cultural differences, language barriers, and low socioeconomic status contribute to these difficulties. While previous studies have identified barriers and proposed technology-mediated solutions for resettled populations, many focus on addressing deficits rather than building on the strengths these communities already possess, which limits the sustainability and relevance of these solutions in everyday life. We conducted two community-based participatory design workshops with 30 Hmong community members in a large metropolitan area in the US. Through this process, we identified four types of assets the community has gradually developed, including intergenerational support for health management and storytelling-based communication practices that facilitate relatable and culturally grounded interactions. We show how participatory design workshops can foster asset-based approaches, and discuss design implications for technologies that leverage patients' existing strengths to support their health management during outpatient visits.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 27 sections, 3 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. HCI and CSCW Studies Supporting Health Management in Communities Adapting to a New Environment
  4. Asset-Based Community Development in HCI and CSCW
  5. Asset-Based Community Development as a Lens for Discovering Community Assets
  6. Participatory Design Methods as a Tool to Identify and Build on Community Assets
  7. Methods
  8. Study Contexts
  9. Ethical Considerations
  10. Positionality
  11. Workshop Design
  12. Participants
  13. Activities Conducted During the Workshop
  14. Scenario-Based Discussion
  15. User Journey Mapping
  16. ...and 12 more sections

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Community-based design workshops with participants. A: A facilitator arranged sticky notes with keywords from participants onto the user journey map. B: A facilitator provided a detailed explanation of the study overview and procedures to participants at the beginning of the workshop.
  • Figure 2: Workshop materials. A: Scenario-based Discussion; B: User Journey Mapping; C: Technology Value Analysis.
  • Figure 3: Clinic observation photos. A: The pharmacy of the clinic. B: The exam room of the clinic.