Co-Designing M-Healer: Supporting Lay Practitioner Mental Health Workers in Ghana

Liam Albright, Hoa Le, Suzanne Meller, Angela Ofori Atta, Dzifa A. Attah, Seth M. Asafo, Pamela Y. Collins, Dror Ben Zeev, Jaime Snyder

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Mental health is a vast problem around the globe and is one of the key population health issues in the world today. At any given time, up to 6.8% of the world’s population suffers from a serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The impacts of SMI on a population are especially challenging in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). Mobile healthcare application research is a growing area of research aiming to ameliorate these challenging impacts. In Ghana, a LMIC in West Africa, mental healthcare systems are severely under-resourced and people with SMI often receive care from lay practitioners such as traditional and faith healers rather than trained mental health clinicians. These challenges exist alongside developed wireless infrastructure. In these contexts, mobile applications can substantially increase access to health information. This is the basis for our work developing a mobile health (mHealth) application to support mental health lay practitioners in Ghana. We describe the ways that our principled design research practice is intersecting with local faith-based practices, vernacular expertise and values, and the practicalities of technology adoption in Ghana.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHCI International 2021 - Late Breaking Posters - 23rd HCI International Conference, HCII 2021, Proceedings
EditorsConstantine Stephanidis, Margherita Antona, Stavroula Ntoa
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages115-124
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9783030901783
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Event23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021 - Virtual, Online
Duration: 24 Jul 202129 Jul 2021

Publication series

NameCommunications in Computer and Information Science
Volume1499 CCIS
ISSN (Print)1865-0929
ISSN (Electronic)1865-0937

Conference

Conference23rd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2021
CityVirtual, Online
Period24/07/2129/07/21

Keywords

  • Ghana
  • Mental health
  • Mobile health

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